For too long, women artists have been told they must choose between a successful career and motherhood. But a new exhibition at Birmingham’s Stryx Gallery is challenging this binary. ‘Mothership’ not only celebrates the work of 12-artist mothers but poses an important question: can the act of caregiving spark creativity?
Immediately welcoming visitors into the space is an interactive den by artist-educator Jo Essen. Draped across poles, pastel-coloured sheets are patterned with natural dyes, from avocado stones to onion peel, the remains of which hang in a pouch, inviting touch. Evoking a child’s homemade hideaway, this build’s playfulness sets a tone for the wider show.
Essen’s structure reflects, too, that this gallery space has been home to a group of children for the last 3 months, thanks to Stryx’s pioneering new residency, ‘Mothership’. Rooted in an ethos of inclusivity, and taking inspiration from Lucy Campbell’s ‘Radical Childcare Report’, it has provided 12 artists with studios plus integrated childcare, allowing them to work side-by-side with their toddlers.
Allowing children inside the studio has significantly influenced the practice of artists including Sylwia Ciszewska-Peciak. The street photographer has previously focused on framing anonymous female figures. However, as she says, “Since becoming a mum, I’ve been in a constant process of change and transformation, which has encouraged me to experiment more and photograph my own journey, turning inwards”.
Inspired by her daughter’s playing blocks, ‘Patchwork Mother’ consists of cubes, each side covered in a different black and white photographic self-portrait. On a screen, these fragmented, moving images depict the artist laughing, frowning and gazing back at viewers, inviting them to experience the full span of emotions – from joy to exhaustion and sadness – that being a mother involves.
Below and positioned in a precarious tower are the physical blocks, which look ready to tumble at any moment. The artist wants visitors to reassemble them, engaging in the exhibition’s honest conversation about the realities of caregiving.
This same authenticity continues in Isabella Catherine Dogliani’s autobiographical photograph, ‘Wet T-shirt Contest’. By subverting the exhibitionist competition, she has framed a source of stigma around motherhood: bodily fluids. Her headless body, visible through the soaked t-shirt, has been overlaid with words, “Leaking nappy, leaking nips/Leaky noses, leaky lips/Snotty sick leave/Wipe with sleeve.”
Faye Robinson is another artist who confronts the politics of female bodies. In ‘Love Locks’ she has woven long strands of her dark hair into a faded blue silk dress, ripping apart traditional images of femininity to craft the words ‘GOOD MUM, GOOD ENOUGH MUM…’ As she has commented, “Raising kids means sacrificing your own identity” while “the media fuels insecurities about being a good mother”, both issues stitched into this poetic work.
For creator Lucy Bowser, art has provided a space where she’s been able to visualise the significant chemical changes to her brain. Mesmerising, colourful surface patterns reflect surges in oxytocin, serotonin and cortisol, while the medium of glass reflects both “the fragility of things” and her “strength in the face of it”, as she explains.
Bowser adds that she has “found freedom” through this residency, which has “ignited creativity” in her, a fact echoed across the group’s show where playfulness is a defining theme. Natalie Zervou-Kerruish’s organic-shaped hanging sculpture evokes an oversized mobile, while Emma Bowen more directly references a collaborative process with her child, whose finger prints are moulded into delicate clay sculptures. Shared experiences also surface in Natalie Mason’s installation which screens a film of her child drawing, while pens atop the lightbox surface encourage young visitors to add scribbles to the artwork.
Behind it, Maisie Violet Rees has upcycled domestic plates; a creative woman, camera in hand, is the main character of one, while another looks at the viewer through a magnifying glass, her eye enlarged as she interrogates the world.
Female stories continue in Charlotte Bailey’s “fam zine”, which tells tales of the Windrush Generation’s arrival in Birmingham. Emphasising the importance of community, heritage and hospitality, she shows that music, food and art can bring people together. Chairs beside a table of her zines invite readers to spend time in the show, which deserves just that.
Historically considered a taboo subject, this exhibition proves that motherhood encompasses multi-layered themes of identity, transformation, memory and heritage – all of which these artists have drawn on. Simultaneously, the group has proved that children can have a positive impact on their practice, encouraging experimentation, play and even a sense of freedom.
Yet, motherhood requires sacrifices, as felt by each of the exhibiting artists, many of whom have taken long career breaks. As Stryx’s Directors Anna Katarzyna Domejko and Karolina Korupczynska have commented, “You can feel how important this show has been to these women who are re-emerging as artists again, not separate from their children but alongside them”.
Refuting the binary choice between motherhood and art, ‘Mothership’ proves that caregiving can spark creativity in the right conditions, which Stryx Gallery’s unique residency has provided. The result is a moving and empowering exhibition that centres the authentic experiences of 12 inventive artist-mothers whose practice is enriched by their duality.
‘Mothership’ runs until Saturday 19th April 2025 at Stryx Gallery, Jewellery Quarter. To find out more about the exhibition, and the free creative workshops on offer, please visit stryx.co.uk/Mothership