Bodies of Work, a group show curated by Corinne Botz, considers maternal experiences, with works by contemporary artists Marina Berio, Patty Chang, Lenka Clayton, Jamie Diamond, Nona Faustine, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, and Cao Yu. The artworks are stylistically diverse and incorporate a range of approaches, exploring inter-related themes including the body, time, politics, love, attachment, and separation. Normative and coherent ideals of motherhood are challenged, and the maternal is considered as a vital political force.
There has been a surge of artworks, books, and articles about motherhood over the past few years. To paraphrase a recent Paris Review article by Lauren Elkin, motherhood is finally being taken seriously in wider arts and a canon of motherhood is beginning to take shape. The subject of motherhood is urgent in the current political climate where there is a need to guarantee women control over their bodies. Women have begun to speak more candidly about health issues and biological processes that have in the past been cloaked in secrecy. Recent news articles have revealed bias against pregnant women and mothers in the workplace, and in spring 2018 the United States stunned the world when it declined to back a seemingly uncontroversial resolution to support breastfeeding in underdeveloped countries. For much of art history the subject of mothers were represented by men. Earlier generations of female artists often chose a career over motherhood or steered clear of explicitly addressing motherhood in their work because it was dismissed.
In this exhibition, maternal experiences, both overtly and obliquely, are transmitted into works that challenge preconceptions about being a mother and artist, while acknowledging the continued lack of resources and obstacles. The artists in Bodies of Work contribute something new to representations of motherhood, and offer an opportunity to delve deeper into the multiplicities that shape us.
Seeing and acknowledging what we see has an ethical dimension. I use photography to
make things visible and to reveal experience or spaces that we might not otherwise have access to. A sustained focus on space, gender, and the body is central to my work with photography. Lactation rooms are everyday spaces that embody deeply felt subjective experiences of motherhood. Symbolically and materially, expressed milk is a substitute for the mother’s physical presence and emotional intimacy when separated from her child. Photographs in my series “Milk Factory,” offer insight into women’s personal experiences, the maternal body’s status in the workplace, and ideological contradictions inherent in modern parenthood and government policies. The photographs are named for the diverse professions of the pumping women. The solitary pumping rooms take on collective power through the accumulation of photographs.
This exhibition explores the unique questions artists face, from both internal and external forces, when they become parents. It is our challenge to the once pervasive conception that artists cannot be dedicated to their creative work while raising a family.
Any type of generalization in reference to parenthood is problematic. The emotions, circumstances, challenges, and benefits involved are far too complex. What we can speak to, and what we hope this exhibition highlights, is the mosaic of issues and opportunities that arise for artists when they become parents, and the intimate, poignant, and illuminating work which results.
Artists often feel as if they are what they create. When what is created is a child, however, a paradoxical and staggering loss of self can result. Less time in the studio, less time alone, the pressures of domesticity—all of these can contribute to a dramatic re-consideration of what it means to be creative. Using humor and often including his children in his work, Alberto Aguilar has gracefully found ways to blend his home life with his art practice. Children have a marvelous ability to touch everything, and parents have an innate capacity to receive their children into their lives completely. For artists Lenka Clayton and Rebecca Silberman, documenting this process of integration is their vehicle for expression.
There are subtle ways the art world remains difficult for artists who have children. Very few residencies allow artists to bring their partners and children along, and those that do are highly competitive. These artists are often overlooked for opportunities because it is assumed they will not have the time. And the reduction in creative output that often accompanies having children can be interpreted as a failure to thrive by peers.
But artists are not the only ones who face challenges when it comes to navigating a professional life while maintaining a healthy sense of self. Realizing the right balance, and finding strength within it, is a universal endeavor. Whether we are parents or not, we can all find inspiration in the union of personal and professional, intimate and formal, that these works of art represent.
Elizabeth McFalls (Libby) is a Professor of Art and the Department of Art’s Art Foundation Coordinator at Columbus State University. She received her MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art (MI) and earned her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (OH). Libby’s love of storytelling began in childhood. Having been raised in East Tennessee, she attended the National Storytelling Festival on numerous occasions. She recalls summers spent developing a love and appreciation for oral storytelling; she and her sisters were fortunate enough to spend a great deal of time with extended family that spread five living generations. While her work does not make direct reference to her family history, she creates nonlinear visual narratives that examine issues of loss and family. Her work explores moments that blur the line between fact and fiction, life and death, humor and sorrow, moments that demonstrate the contradiction and complexity of life. At the moment she is busy, in the studio, completing a one-year Artist Residency in Motherhood (ARIM).
Her recent body of work began when she embarked on a one-year Artist Residency in Motherhood (ARIM). During the ARIM she honestly responded to her life, time limitations, successes, and failures in an intuitive nature. The hybrid prints and collages reflect her love of storytelling through the creation of nonlinear visual narratives that examine issues of loss and family. Her work explores moments that blur the line between fact and fiction, life and death, humor and sorrow, moments that demonstrate the contradiction and complexity of life.