I’ve been a working artist, curator, community activist and teacher for more than 25 years, creating and producing intimate solo performances, large-scale public happenings, socially engaged interventions and performance art workshops and lectures. My practice extends across black boxes and white cubes, art fairs and subway stations, international festivals, and single bathroom stalls. I’ve operated an artist-run newsstand in a vacant subway station kiosk, a soup kitchen for artists, a breast milk tasting bar, and a performance festival hub for kids. I’m forever inspired by the rebel queers, renegade witches, and other dyke moms I run with, and bound to many brilliant artists, activists, spell-casters and healers. For many years I made performances that drew from my own experiences of trauma and transformation, intimacy and motherhood. More recently, I’ve experienced a shift in my practice, where my attention has turned to wider theoretical questions about the nature of performance itself to ask questions about when, where, how we perform - in theatres and galleries, on social media, and in our everyday lives.
My work marries a functional, aesthetic, and conceptual approach to metal. She works with concepts of adornment to create works that use the body to engage in conversations that draw directly from her personal life.
“I was trained as a jeweler years ago, which brought me to understand the intricacies of creating work that is personal to each person wearing it and expresses parts of their life. The choice to work with precious metals has been because of their inherent strengths and weaknesses. I value silver, both for its culturally relevant quality and for its beauty. I employ copper for its strength and abundance. I am, after all, interested in creating something beautiful and desirable. As I continue to explore these personal narratives through these metals, themes that relate to my life as a mother begin to come through. My initial interest in small, intimate works, is finding a new source of expression that allows me to create intimate pieces that explore the relationships I have to my children.”
Artist as Mother as Artist is a co-curated gallery exhibition by Sam Rose and Tracey Kershaw, featuring artworks across the disciplines of video, dance on film, photography, sculpture, drawing, print, and live art and performance documents. Showcasing fourteen local and national artists whose practice is based upon the inseparable relationship between being an artist and mother, all works featured have all been nourished, enabled, influenced and created as a consequence of the artist’s maternal experiences.
Additionally, there will be a series of professional development opportunities and public participatory events that will consider how parenthood can enhance creative thinking. These events will encourage debate and conversation, making the maternal a critical component of artistic discourse.
Artist as Mother as Artist aims to inspire child and parent collaboration and encourage artistic practice amongst mothers, who may feel a conflict between their artistic engagement and their day-to-day caring activities.
Artist as Mother as Artist project is supported by Arts Council England, ncn Lace Market Gallery, My Family Care, Lumen PR, Jazz Hairdressing and Creative Quarter Nottingham.