School of Arts and Communication

Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts

University of Southern Queensland

TRAVERSING MOTHER/ARTIST IDENTITIES IN

CONTEMPORARY INSTALLATION ART

An exegesis submitted by

Linda N. Clark, BVA

For the award of

Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) (Visual Arts)

2014

2

Student No. 0050084425

ABSTRACT

Traversing Mother/Artist Identities in Contemporary Installation Art is a

practice-led research project that investigates the

shifting re-interpretations of motherhood as subject

matter in contemporary art. This research identifies

historical models of motherhood, the role of feminism and

gender discourse in the shifting notion of motherhood.

This is examined in relation to complex hierarchies

regarding the private/domestic and public/professional

sphere.

Central to the traversal of mother/artist identities, is

the proposal of a creative space that develops unique

domestic rituals within the very process of art making.

The central question that my research seeks to answer is:

To what extent is the process of traversing mother/artist identities a useful

model for providing mother/artists with permission to reinstate a creative

space between motherhood and art practice? A central exploration

regarding this notion of a creative space will involve re-orienting domestic

rituals and personal narrative as innovative sites in installation art that blur

private and public boundaries. Examinations of contemporary

installation work and my own studio research provide

examples in translating the mother role into personal art

narrative. Within this, I propose mothering rituals as

3

innovative creative processes in art practice, whereby I

redefine the role of the mother as keeper, facilitator

and manipulator of memory. This mother/artist identity

overcomes the limitations of gender inherited from

patriarchal structures in visual art, and also

contributes to our understanding of practice-led

research.

4

CERTIFICATION OF EXEGESIS

I certify that the ideas, experimental work, results,

analyses, software and conclusions reported in this

exegesis are entirely my own effort, except where

otherwise acknowledged. I also certify that the work is

original and has not been previously submitted for any

other award, except where otherwise acknowledged.

___________________________

Linda Clark

17 October, 2014

ENDORSEMENT

_____________________

____________________

Dr David Akenson Dr Beata Batorowicz

(Supervisor) (Supervisor)

5

_____________________

____________________

Date Date

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An ongoing project such as this could not be completed

without the assistance of a number of people, whom I wish

to acknowledge here.

Thanks to the Visual Art lecturers at University of

Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, all of whom have

contributed to my education here over the past eight

years.

For specific assistance on this project, I am thankful to

Dr David Akenson for his invaluable insight into art

theoretical discourse.

Special thanks must go to Dr Beata Batorowicz for her

continued support and guidance. Dr Batorowicz has

tirelessly reviewed drafts, provided research assistance,

and provided critical feedback within my studio practice.

For this, I am incredibly indebted.

Finally, thank you to my husband, daughter, son and

extended family. They have not only supported my work,

but have been willing participants in the process of art

6

making. Without them, this project truly would not have

come to fruition.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 3

Certification4

Acknowledgements5

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction - Traversing Mother/Artist Identities in Contemporary Installation Art 7

1.1 Research Methodologies13

CHAPTER TWO: Historical Overview of the Motherhood/Artist Identities in Installation Art Through Literature Review

18

7

2.1 Recent History of Feminism and GenderDiscourse in Shifting Notions of Motherhood 18

2.2 The Contemporary Shift in Artist Practice-Investigating Artist Identities Concerning Motherhood

26

CHAPTER THREE: Dichotomies of Motherhood as Subject Matter in Installation Art

29

3.1 Blurring the Boundaries of Public andPrivate Action.

29

3.2 Innovative Mother/Artist Strategies in the Work of Lenka Clayton.

31

3.3 Dichotomies within Innovative Mother/Artist Strategies of Courtney Kessel 35

CHAPTER FOUR: Mothering Rituals as Creative Models in Contemporary Installation Art

37

4.1 Ritual and Relic-Exploring Motherhoodin my Installation Practice.

37

4.2 Keeper, Facilitator and Manipulator of Memory: Redefining Mother/Artist Identities. 41

CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusion44

8

References48

List of Figures54

CHAPTER ONE - Introduction

Traversing Mother/Artist Identities in Contemporary Installation Art

In contemporary visual art discourse, the role of

motherhood has profound impact on the practice of women

artists. While the process of balancing parenting

alongside a career is in itself demanding, motherhood

also produces change within the artist’s own personal

identity in the very process of undertaking dual roles of

mother and artist (Liss 2009, p. xvii). This change

involves learning to navigate dual identities in light of

the current social tendency for the mother and artist

roles to often overlap or even integrate the private

(home) and public (professional) sphere (Loveless 2012,

p.4). American artist Courtney Kessel is one such

example whose work conceptually operates on the possible

integration of public and private spheres. Her

installation and performance work In Balance With (2010) (Fig

#1) utilises the role of mothering within the home as a

site for her art practice. This is an intentional

alternative to the conventional use of the art gallery

space (Kessel 2012). In this way, Kessel exposes the

delicate balance of motherhood with the psychological and

physical detritus of domestic life.

9

Figure #1

The process of traversing the mother/artist role is

therefore complex and often sets up dichotomies that may

impact personal creative processes to making art. For

example, the life experience of becoming a mother can

potentially add psychological and experiential layers to

an artist’s creative process, but at the same time, the

responsibility of caring for children often takes

priority over art-making itself and holds a life-long

commitment (Power 2012, p.3). The mother/artist dichotomy

amidst this shift of life priorities often instigates a

re-orientation in subject matter and approach to art

practice (Loveless 2012, p.2). This re-orientation

process is also a result of women artists often finding

themselves in the position of having to employ new

approaches or models of art practice to accommodate their

10

life change. This is due to the added requirement to

balance new parameters in the time and space that

otherwise would have been reserved for making art. In

her book The Divided Heart: Art & Motherhood, artist and author

Rachel Power provides an explanation of the dichotomies

that are experienced by women artists who become mothers:

‘The psychic transformation that occurs with motherhood

arrives simultaneously with the cruellest of constraints

on a woman’s time and freedom to create’ (Power 2012 p.

1).

Within these parameters, artists who have become mothers

have negotiated alternative strategies to maintain an art

practice that has relevance in contemporary culture. An

example of alternative models of practice is demonstrated

through using hybrid art practices, often interweaving

installation, performance and video work as a strategy in

exploring the conceptual and physical complexities of

motherhood as subject matter. American artist Marni

Kotak’s work The Birth of Baby X (2011) (Fig #2) is an example

of hybrid practice using performance and installation.

The artist gave birth in the gallery that was transformed

to resemble a home birthing suite installation. Kotak’s

aim was ‘recontextualizing parenthood as performance art,

and engaging audiences in the authentic experience of

life as its being lived’ (Kotak 2011, para. 1).

11

Figure #2

British artist Cornelia Parker describes installation as

a distinctly female experience because of the inclusivity

conveyed through the immersive nature of an installation,

whereby it engages an active relationship between the

work, audience and site (Parker in Tickner 2003, p. 368).

Therefore, the role of the artist in creating an

inclusive installation environment can be paralleled with

the mother that creates a ‘nurturing’ environment within

a home. This holds a different agency to the conventional

patriarchal positioning of the mother as being in the

domestic periphery. On the contrary, through traversing

the mother/artist role, the notion of ‘nurturing’ is

redefined as an active form of inclusivity in the context

of installation environments.

The notion of motherhood has undergone significant re-

definition in light of its historically gendered

12

positioning of being the primary carer for the child and

predominately occupying domestic spheres (Battersby 1989,

p.6). The concept of domesticity began with the modern

age, when Enlightenment notions of individuality led to

the idea of the domestic home as separated from the

workplace, a place for privacy, comfort, and with a focus

on family (Reed 1996). Contemporary definitions of the

domestic are more complex. In studies of western society,

the home becomes such when a dwelling is instilled with

the meaning, feelings and experiences of its occupants,

and carries meanings of privacy, identity and family that

vary across social groups (Gorman-Murray 2007, p.229).

However, these definitions leave out the complication of

gender, and the patriarchal hierarchies within art

discourse that undervalue the ‘private’ domestic sphere

because of its association with the female. Therefore,

investigating mother/artist identities in a contemporary

context is useful in identifying the complex hierarchies

regarding the private/public sphere.

Within recent history, inequalities within gender

prescribed roles in ‘private’ and ‘public’ realms were

addressed through feminism. For example, during the late

1960’s, feminist artists influenced by the Women's

Liberation Movement began to use ‘traditional’ rituals

such as storytelling, and domestic chores such as cooking

and sewing, within their artwork, in order to give agency

to the visual art discourse regarding gender. Female

artists ‘began to utilise women's craft and decorative

13

art as a viable artistic means to express female

experience, thereby pointing to its political and

subversive potential’ (Brooklyn Museum 2014, para.2).

Artists such as Judy Chicago, Faith Wilding and Mary

Kelly were changing the negative connotations normally

associated with so called ‘women’s work’, and instilling

these labours with new associations. An example of this

feminist work that used women’s private domestic

experiences as subject matter was Judy Chicago and Miriam

Shapiro’s Womanhouse (1971-72) (Fig #3). The first

project of its kind, Womanhouse (1971-72) was a

collaborative project by twenty-five female students of

the California Institute of Arts Feminist Art Program,

using installation and performance to explore the

artist’s responses to the female role within the home

(Wilding 1977, para. 2). Also at this time, artist and

theorist Mary Kelly explored the ‘oscillation between

theoretical and everyday life in the mother-child

relationship’ in her work Post-Partum Document (1973-79)

(Fig #4) (Liss 2009, p. 25). Kelly’s work provided

further evidence of the increased use of the motherhood

role within art practice at that time.

14

Figure #3

Figure #4

15

In response to the ongoing re-definition of the

mother/artist roles, this exegesis will explore the

significance of traversing mother/artist identities in

developing creative processes and models within

contemporary art. More specifically, this exegesis will

address the following central research question: To what

extent is the process of traversing mother/artist identities a useful model for

providing mother/artists with permission to reinstate a creative space

between motherhood and art practice? A central exploration regarding this

notion of a creative space will involve re-orienting domestic rituals and

personal narrative as innovative and relevant sites in installation art that

blur private and public boundaries.

This central focus proposes that the traversal between

the roles of mother/artist develops unique rituals and

ideas of the domestic, as a way of offering innovative

creative models for mother/artists. This approach of

working presents a changing dialogue within contemporary

art that not only challenges patriarchal dominance, but

also gives ‘permission’ for innovative sites for art

within the domestic and its association with the mother,

upon which the mother/artist asserts her own personal

narrative.

This research explores personal narrative through the use

of everyday ritual and relic associated with the mother

identity. Domestic rituals associated with mothering

represent a site for a new mother/artist role. For

example, the notion of the mother’s role as keeper,

facilitator and manipulator of memory within the 16

mother/child relationship is of particular interest.

Within this role, ritual is used as a catalyst to explore

new subject matter that results from the traversal of

mother/artist identities. I position this role as an

innovative model whereby the mother/artist can manipulate

the role to facilitate creative process. New mythologies

and symbolic codes of the mother identity can then be

located as a result of this unique creative process.

Within this topic, the domestic includes the interior and

exterior of the dwelling itself, the nurturing

relationships which take place inside, the daily rituals

or traditions that are performed within the domestic, and

finally, the ‘relics’ that are the metaphorical remnants

of these rituals. This definition of domestic will

facilitate further analysis of how artists utilise the

motherhood role to expose and deconstruct the boundaries

between ‘public’ and ‘private’ action.

This work contributes significant research in overcoming

previous limitations in motherhood subject matter, and

participates in deconstructing private and public

boundaries. This is achieved through the creative process

of investigating individual artist identities and

experiences concerning motherhood, in the context of

installation art. In turn, this innovative approach

within creative models of working sheds a different light

on the mother identity that is usually undermined within

contemporary art and within associated theoretical

discourse.17

In light of the premise of undermined motherhood, a paper

presented at the 2010 conference Mothering and Motherhood in

the 21st Century: Research and Activism by artist and researcher

Claire Harbottle, states that the undermining of mother

identity within historical art discourse actually began

with the visual representations of birthing as infant

focussed. This mode of representation negates the agency

of mothers in their process of so-becoming, and informs

attitudes towards and roles ascribed to women who mother

(Harbottle 2010). This occurs by removing the mother from

images of birth in an anti-subjective depiction of the

very action that makes a woman a mother. In this way, the

mother is undermined within social and cultural roles,

including the artist role. Constructs such as these

contribute to the reduced value of female creativity, and

have been critiqued in feminist theory.

In 1989, British feminist theorist Christine Battersby

discussed postmodern feminist aesthetics in her book

Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetic. In this book,

Battersby posited that it was a woman’s capacity to give

birth and nurture which assigned her automatically,

within a patriarchal society, to be defined socially and

culturally as a domestic being, as less valuable than a

man, as ‘other’ (Battersby 1989, p. 157). In the text,

Battersby discussed the social and historical background

against which the term ‘creative genius’ was constructed

as a primarily male concept, in an attempt to expose the

problems regarding artistic relevance experienced by

18

female artists at the time (Battersby 1989, p.157).

Similar feminist art historical analysis regarding

‘gender-blind discourse’ within art history was discussed

by Griselda Pollock in ‘Women, Art and Ideology: Questions for

Feminist Art Historians’ (1983). Pollock argued that ‘the

discourses of art history perpetuate and reproduce

through their specialised treatment of art and artist,

the hierarchical gender divisions of our society’

(Pollock 1984, p. 54). Research such as this provides

context for the impact of patriarchal ideologies on

female artists, and will be further examined within

research methodologies employed in this topic.

1.1 Research Methodologies

This exegesis will employ qualitative research

methodologies to demonstrate understanding of the

dialogue surrounding contemporary visual art made by

women. These qualitative research methodologies will

include empirical research that ‘bases its findings on

direct or indirect observations as a test of its

reality’, grounded in evidence from practitioner

accounts, personal reflections and independent

perspectives (Candy 2006, p.18). This empirical research

is based on historical studies of feminist aesthetics as

investigated by Christine Battersby, Gayatri Spivak and

Lucy Lippard, as well as feminist art evaluations

proposed by Andrea Liss, Natalie Loveless and Estella

19

Lauter. While these analyses will provide context for the

development of subject matter and creative process by

female artists in the past, they will also be utilised to

investigate how sociocultural, gender based and political

discourse impact the mother identity within visual art.

Within the context of feminist aesthetics, psychoanalytic

perspectives of Nancy Chodorow will be discussed in

relation to the role of the mother in socialisation

constructs. Further empirical research will include

artist examples and case studies such as Courtney Kessel,

Lenka Clayton, and Cornelia Parker.

Practice-led research methodologies will be examined as

important in establishing the relevance of motherhood

subject matter used to produce work that constitutes

research within an academic context (Robinson 2009,

p.59). Artist Anne Robinson offers an example of

practice-led research methodologies employed by artists

as ‘constantly engaging in acts of translation using

concepts, space, lines, material, technology and words:

the means by which we produce works which ‘affect’, but

also produce knowledge’ (Robinson 2009, p. 70). In the

broader context, this mother/artist model also

contributes to our understanding of practice-led research

methods concerning gender-based artwork and approaches to

navigating private/public art. As part of this practice-

led research, an analysis of my artwork as an

autoethnographic research method will be employed, where

personal experiences of motherhood are considered in

20

relation to social and cultural issues within visual art

(Scott-Hoy & Ellis 2008, p.131).

Chapter Two- Historical Overview of the Motherhood/Artist Identities in

Installation Art Through Literature Review, will locate the

historical positions on motherhood and its various shifts

as a result of gender based discourse, within the last

forty years. An application of literature review

throughout Chapters Two and Three provides critical

engagement of the topic in relation to Gayatri Spivak’s

text In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics and Christine

Battersby’s text Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics.

This approach to literature review is used to provide

critical context in relation to a progressive

articulation of the changing identities of mother/artists

within art historical dialogue. To explain the role of

feminist aesthetics within the dialogue of gender

identity, relevant research by feminist philosophers such

as Christine Battersby will be discussed. Further,

patriarchal ideologies prescribing the mother as inferior

or ‘other’ will be addressed through the deconstructive

approach of post-colonial theorist Gayatri Spivak in

light of her concept of ‘otherness’. Spivak’s ideas about

the value of women’s labour and production will be a

particular focus. Moreover, contemporary artist’s use of

personal experiences of motherhood within their practice

will also be examined as it relates to the formation of

gender prescribed roles, identity and the subversion of 21

patriarchal ideologies. A statement by British artist

Lenka Clayton in her essay ‘Artist Residency in Motherhood’

describes this practice as located inside the

traditionally “inhospitable” environment of a family

home, the work subverts the art-world’s romanticism of

the unattached (often male) artist (Clayton, 2012).

Chapter Three- Dichotomies of Motherhood as Subject Matter in

Installation Art discusses ways in which artists bring the

private world of mothering into the public realm through

installation. These installation works depict everyday

rituals, and investigate how this process redefines

mother/artist identities. Gayatri Spivak’s de-

constructivist theory of patriarchal hierarchies of

public and private action will be discussed in terms of

her proposal that all feminist activity is implicit in

the deconstruction of the opposition between ‘public’ and

‘private’. Heide Gottner-Abendroth’s proposition of a

maternal aesthetic will contribute to ideas of the

blurred boundaries between the mother artist’s private

world and art theoretical discourse. Case studies of

contemporary artists Lenka Clayton and Courtney Kessel,

will explain the idea of bringing the private world of

mothering into the public realm through installations

that depict everyday rituals. Finally, the chapter will

reveal how many contemporary mother/artists challenge

assumptions implicit within the mother identity through

the creation of sites for alternative dialogue regarding

the impact of mother/artist dichotomies. This approach

22

validates the interweaving of the mother/artist roles as

subject matter as a way of subverting presumed realities

of motherhood.

Chapter Four - Mothering Rituals In Contemporary Art will

investigate the idea of domestic ritual as a site for

developing personal narrative in installation art. This

chapter will consider the installation of the conceptual

object as relic, through the use of motherhood as subject

matter. To explain this approach, everyday domestic

rituals such as braiding hair or reading to a child can

be reinterpreted and manipulated by the artist to produce

artwork that conveys personal stories. This notion of

reinterpreting rituals within the home that occur within

the traversal of the artist/mother roles, produces new

conceptual meanings and metaphors that can be translated

to objects as relics of this process. Within this, I

propose a role for the mother/artist as keeper,

facilitator and manipulator of memory, and explain its

use as a tool to explore new subject matter located at

the juncture between motherhood and artistic practice.

For example, the mother/artist can manipulate a memory as

the basis for a new artwork which conveys alternative

mythologies or messages. First, an examination of my

installation work Manipulating Memory (2013) (Fig #5 & #6)

will offer an example of the underlying subtleties within

ritual that can be used as a site for personal narrative,

and the subject matter which exists in the experiences of

mothering relationships. Through examination of work by

23

Australian artist Danielle Hobbs and English artist

Cornelia Parker, the chapter will examine that the

process of reinterpreting rituals produces new conceptual

meanings and metaphors that can be translated to objects

as relics of this process.

This research will demonstrate that the personal

narrative and domestic ritual located at the

mother/artist role intersection indeed provides

innovative and relevant sites for the production of

installation art. While this model positively impacts

subject matter for artists, it also provides a useful

model for creative spaces within practice-led research.

Figure #5

24

Figure #6

25

CHAPTER TWO – Historical Overview of theMotherhood/Artist Identities in Installation Art

Through Literature Review

This chapter will provide a review of literature and

historical overview of the complex discourse on

motherhood and the role of gender identity within visual

art with three key aims. First, the chapter will identify

recent historical discourse within the last forty years

that exposed the realities of motherhood, thus

contributing to the location of motherhood as subject in

art. Secondly, the chapter will discuss reasons for the

ambivalence of female artists to use motherhood as

subject matter in the past, and the shift that has

occurred within subject matter to subvert patriarchal

ideologies. The review of literature from two sources

will used to provide theoretical evidence of the

historical progress of mother identity in art. Finally,

this chapter will provide a context for how the recent

shift within the motherhood identity for contemporary

female artists, has allowed them to locate artistic

practice within the traversal of the mother/artist

identities. This practice creates space for innovative

creative process using personal narrative within

motherhood subject matter.

2.1 Recent History of Feminism and Gender Discourse in

Shifting Notions of Motherhood.

Within feminist activism and postmodern debates regarding

culture and society, feminist perspectives in aesthetics 26

arose in the 1970’s (Korsmeyer 2012, para.4). As part of

feminist aesthetics, feminist psychoanalytical theorists

such as Julia Kristeva, critically analyzed gender

influence as it related to visual art. Psychoanalytic

aesthetic theory was used to examine ways in which a

gendered sense of self is influenced by unconscious

drives and ordered by symbolic structures that are beyond

the conscious control of the individual (Zakin 2011,

para.1). As part of feminist debates, analysis of the

undermined mother identity began through the feminist

strand of psychoanalysis. While this strand discredited

the role of patriarchal ideologies in the gender

identification process regarding girls, there are still

some gaps regarding the role of the mother in this

context. These dialogues present the mother as relegated

to the outside, both in the formation of her child’s ego,

and the action of her body while giving birth. For

instance, feminist psychoanalyst Kristeva’s idea of

abjection posits that creation of the self can only be

achieved through abjection, or rejection, of the mother

(Korsmeyer 2012, ch.5, para.9). Therefore, everyday

actions and rituals associated with becoming and being a

mother can be easily translated to being ‘other’ and

‘outside’, and of lesser importance both within society

and visual art. This is important to acknowledge because

it explains why the idea of using motherhood as subject

matter for art practice may represent a ‘threat’ to a

female’s identity as an artist.

27

Feminist theory questions whether patriarchal ideologies

have reduced the scope of possibility for artists in

Western society and culture (Ross 1994, p.565). Feminist

aesthetics has also offered critical evaluations of the

problems which exist in visual art aesthetics in regard

to gender. In 1988, feminist art historian Linda Nochlin

wrote ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’ as a critical

reflection on the limited ‘greatness’ of art by women. To

answer to her question, Nochlin concluded that:

Artists and their works occur in a social situation,and are integral elements of this social structure, and are mediated and determined by specific and definable social institutions, be they art academies, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man or social outcast (Nochlin 1988, p.158).

That is, as long as a social structure remained

unchanged, the art by women would continue to be of

lesser ‘greatness’. In returning to Battersby’s ‘Gender

and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics’, her argument exposes

the undercurrent of social conditioning where the mother

as procreator is immediately identified with the body,

which is seen in a patriarchal society as inferior to the

male who is identified with the mind, or the genius

(Battersby 1989, p.9). To give context to this argument,

Battersby exposed the way psychoanalytic perspectives

have contributed to the male gendering of creative

genius, by examining how Freud described a woman’s

intellectual, moral and creative subordination - as a

28

‘normal’ consequence of their resolution of the Oedipal

complex (Battersby 1989, p. 134). This contributes

further to the undercurrent of a patriarchal ideology

that normalises the unequal dichotomy between male and

female creativity. Also, Battersby posits that semiotic

theorist Jacques Lacan has, in his attack on authorship,

contributed to reducing the creative power of females by

representing ‘feminine as ‘not masculine’ and

consequently consigning women to being ‘other’, or

outside of creative boundaries’ (Battersby 1989, p.9).

While this writing exposed how male gendering of the

‘genius’ who creates, continued to negatively impact

women’s cultural achievement, it also proposed an

empowered model of female creativity. Battersby proposes

a female ‘genius’ as ‘a woman who is judged to occupy a

strategic position in the matrilineal and patrilineal

patterns of tradition that make up culture’ (Battersby

1989, p.157). Further, Battersby proposed that feminist

art and criticism is a ‘collective enterprise’ within

which artists and critics attempt to ‘transform the

general understanding of what is possible for women’

(Battersby 1989, p.157). Battersby’s work reminds us

that patriarchal limitations on female creativity must be

acknowledged, and exist as the starting point for

critical reassessments of how female artists can alter

the boundaries through creativity. In the last forty

years, female artists have challenged patriarchal

assumptions of femininity and motherhood through making

29

art that exposes the realities of the formerly ‘taboo’

realm of the private domestic sphere.

As mentioned in the introduction, from the 1960’s, female

artists who were influenced by the Women’s Liberation

Movement made art as political commentary on male

dominated society. I return here to the California

Feminist Art project ‘Womanhouse’ (1971-72) (Fig #3), as

it interrogated the perceived role of women in general

society, the art world, and in the domestic sphere of the

home. Normally ‘taboo’ subjects were used within this

project, in a direct attack on patriarchal structures of

allowed subject matter within visual art. For example,

Judy Chicago’s Menstruation Bathroom (1971) (Fig #7) was

made by the artist to acknowledge that which is usually

hidden from public view, and referenced how women

themselves feel about their own normal bodily functions

when confronted by it.

Womanhouse (1971-72) also subverted the idea that the

work of female artists could only be confined to the

‘feminine’ domestic world. The works within the project

parodied constructed ideas of female activities by taking

them to the extreme, according to Wilding:

Womanhouse with its sickly pink kitchen, it woman trapped in the sheet closet…its endless homage to costume, makeup and domesticity could also be understood as a sharp critique of the confinement offemale creativity to a limited sphere (Wilding 1977).

30

Miriam Schapiro stated that Womanhouse reversed the

unwritten laws of appropriate subject matter, and

domestic objects such as dolls, pillows, underwear,

frying pans and children’s toys were ‘heightened to the

level of serious art-making (Schapiro in Robinson 1972,

p.126). ‘Womanhouse’ included performance that

conceptualised aspects of the participating artist’s own

lives and experiences (Chicago & Schapiro 1972). For

these artists, the domestic sphere translated to the

studio where they encouraged a ‘womb-like’ creative space

to provide artists with a ‘nourishing environment for

growth’ artistically (Schapiro in Robinson 1972, p. 125).

Within this, female artists began to reveal the

previously unspoken experience of becoming and being a

mother. The Birth Trilogy (1972) (Fig #8) was a performance

work from ‘Womanhouse’ that symbolically depicted the

process of giving birth (Wilding, 1977). The performers

represented the birth canal as they ‘gave birth’ to

fellow artists. The artists then enacted ancient rituals

by chanting and singing. The Birth Trilogy (Fig #8) was

performed to a female audience, and prompted emotional

responses to their first experience of women portraying

previously ‘taboo’ subjects of motherhood (Lacey in Sider

2010, para. 18). This work began to rupture boundaries of

the mother as artist by exposing the realities of

motherhood through subject matter. This relates to my

research by highlighting the early beginnings in models

of subverting patriarchal ideas that avoided the domestic

31

as ‘too feminine’. Further, this work began to expose

false assumptions that the private action of mothers was

too bodily, natural or mundane to exist in creative

process. Therefore, the project participated in leading

the way for artists to traverse this action as subject

matter. Womanhouse was an example of the exposure of an

unspoken gender bias within culture and visual arts

itself, upon which later gender related debates were

based.

Figure #7

32

Figure #8

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, there were limitations

placed on the practice of female artists including lack

of childcare and the restricted entry of children into

art spaces. Female artists then began to investigate the

impact of these social and cultural limitations on

artistic practice. For example, the artist collective

‘Mother Art’ (1977) created installations and

performances based on personal narratives to expose

maternal invisibilities. These narratives included the

dangers that women were exposed to during illegal

abortions, as well as bringing mundane processes such as

washing clothes into the public sphere. The collective

operated in the Women’s Building in Los Angeles,

California, which Mother Art member Suzanne Siegal

recalled at the time, did not welcome children into the

space (Moravec 2003, p.70). The artists created a more

33

hospitable space for children at the Women’s Building

called the Rainbow Playground as:

A way of asserting that the ideal of feminism neededto include childcare and a place for children, because children are part of society and women's lives and that you can't really divorce that fact from being a woman, being a feminist and being an artist (Laura Silagi in Moravec 2002, p.70).

In 1977, the Mother Art collective created Laundry Works

(1977) (Fig #9), a series of performances in which

artists installed artworks in laundromats. The artists

sought to expose private chores of mothers in an art

context. According to cultural theorist Andrea Liss,

Laundry Works (1977) (Fig #9) highlighted ‘the lack of

cultural space accorded to mother-workers and mothers

working as artists’ (Liss 2009, p.2).

Figure #9

An undercurrent existed, causing female artists to avoid

using motherhood as subject matter. In her 1976 essay

34

‘The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth’, art critic Lucy Lippard

questioned why female artists at the time hesitated to

explore motherhood in their work. Lippard proposed that

female artists denied their parenthood because they

wanted to be taken seriously in an art canon which

undermined mothers (Lippard 1976, p.81). Exploring

pregnancy, birth and the nurturing of children within

visual art, was relatively taboo. Andrea Liss has pointed

out the reason those subjects remained taboo: ‘The

maternal from the mother’s perspective has been stifled

because motherhood is considered obvious and trivial from

patriarchal and other supposedly more enlightened points

of view’ (Liss, 2009, p. xvi). An imbalance between the

social and cultural value of men over women was central

to female artist’s ambivalence about exposing their

motherhood through artistic subject matter. Liss explains

this imbalance:

Earlier feminist activism from the 1960s highlightedthe debilitating cultural stereotypes that positioned women below men through such binary oppositions as powerful/submissive, active/passive, rigorous/soft, and so many other false dichotomies (Liss, 2009, p. xv).

This imbalance can be understood through analysis of

patriarchal ideologies, defined as ‘the male-dominated

structure of human social life that has permeated thought

and expression throughout human history at every level’

(Ross 1994, p.565). Within postmodern art, feminist

theory has provided critical evaluations of the impact of

patriarchal ideologies on artists, critics and the 35

aesthetic principles upon which contemporary art is

based. The critical evaluations include the impact of

‘otherness’ on female artistic production. Within a

postcolonial context, ‘otherness’ occurs when dominant

people construct the boundaries of their own identities

in relation to the identities of those they consider less

powerful, or ‘other’ (Cornwall 2014). This can be

understood within feminist theory as patriarchal

ideologies position male artists as the dominant figures,

and female artists as the less powerful identity.

My use of the concept of ‘otherness’ is important to

further explain how patriarchal ideologies within visual

art have contributed to the female artist as being

‘other’ than the socially constructed idea of the male

creative. As previously mentioned, theorist Gayatri

Spivak examines post-colonial ‘otherness’ within the

deconstructivist approach. Spivak challenges the writing

of history by looking at ‘the operation of power and its

effects in culture upon those marginalized by its

operation’ (Spivak in Harrison & Wood 1989, p.1092). This

approach can be transferred to the historical narrative

of visual art aesthetic theory as written with the

patriarchal bias of those who held power within the

social class of theorists, artists and art critics, such

as Freud and Lacan. ‘Those marginalized’ can be

understood as female artists. This is a bias contemporary

artists can now seek to subvert. Within a Marxist

framework, Spivak also investigates the value of

36

production. Within Spivak’s investigation, women’s work

is a sustained example of zero-work, outside of wage

work, and ‘outside’ of definitive modes of production.

This comparison can be examined in relation to motherhood

and the domestic realm. In this case, ‘women’s work’

encompasses the domestic home (and hence private actions

within it), motherhood and art made with the subject

matter of motherhood. If this work is relegated to being

‘outside’ of production, then its relevance as artistic

subject matter is threatened. Spivak conceives that the

solution for this is to reverse the search for validity

via production, and instead use the power of the

‘domestic economy’ that society nurtures (Spivak 2006,

p.112). The mother/artist can participate in this

reversal through work and research which is neither fully

domestic, nor fully located within traditional masculine

modes of production. Rather, the work investigates the

locale of the space between identities of mother and

artist, and the social consequences of the work we may

see there. Arguably, this premise can be interpreted as

representing a shift in gender identities for female

artists who are mothers, and offers alternatives in

subject matter. Battersby continues this discourse

regarding strategies for mother/artists to overcome the

restraints of ‘otherness’ when using the subject of

motherhood.

Christine Battersby calls for a ‘feminist reordering’ of

genius to include the female ‘genius’ as ‘a woman who is

37

judged to occupy a strategic position in the matrilineal

and patrilineal patterns of tradition that make up

culture’ (Battersby 1989, p.157). In relation to the use

of motherhood within art, Battersby discusses the

strategic use of ‘otherness’, motherhood and ‘feminine’

values by female artists. While she does not condemn the

use of these terms as a strategy to enable artists to

create, Battersby calls for female artists to use this to

increase their ‘powers’ as relevant artists, but not to

do so without an awareness of the struggles of previous

women artists to be part of cultural tradition (1989,

p.160). This criticality of female subject matter gives

permission for the use of subjects which have a tendency

to be seen as ‘too female’. However, Battersby argues

against using these subjects without reverence for their

historical complexities and the struggles of previous

female artists which have allowed their use. To do so

would undermine this critical progress in building the

relevance of feminine and motherhood related subject

matter within art theoretical discourse, and within

practice-led research.

2.2 The Contemporary Shift in Artist Practice-

Investigating Artist Identities Concerning Motherhood

Contemporary female artists are responding to the shift

in what constitutes ‘appropriate’ subject matter in

relation to motherhood. Andrea Liss explains that

motherhood as art subject matter has been considered

taboo, caught in patriarchal complications of being too 38

specific and personal (Liss 2009, p. xv) Liss suggests

that the key to this shift lies in using the ‘lived

experience’ of motherhood to breach taboos. This must be

done critically so as not to confuse the complexities of

daily motherhood with the clichéd motherhood identity

which is based on devalued labour (Liss 2009, p. xviii).

The mother/artist dilemma puts forward a cultural and

artistic shift away from motherhood’s primary association

with feminism, and a shift away from patriarchal ideals

within cultural discourse. Now, the mother/artist moves

toward visual art that investigates individual artist

identities concerning motherhood, using complex personal

narratives as subject matter. This shift allows for an

empowered space to address the body of the mother, both

in the effects of birthing and mothering, and the

consequent effects on the body and memory of her child.

This also allows for new sites of ‘permission’ that would

otherwise have been constrained by patriarchy.

Contemporary women artists engaging with the subject

matter of childbirth are represented for example, by

Birth Rites Collection in the United Kingdom. Polish

artist Dominika Dzikowska is one such artist. Dzikowska’s

work Warm, Wet Velvet (2009-13) (Fig #10) explores the

intense experience of childbirth from the mother’s

perspective, to change the misconception that birth is

‘dirty’, and to see the mother as heroic during labour.

The artist seeks to address the absence of the subject of

birth in culture (Dzikowska 2014). This work offers an

39

example of how the mother/artist is identifying with

taboo subjects such as birth, and using them as subject

matter regardless. Using this process, the mother/artist

subverts patriarchal restrictions of subject through the

portrayal of their individual identity as both an artist

and a mother. Also within this shift, a redefinition of

the physical space for artistic production is involved.

Figure #10

Canadian geographer Alison L. Bain investigated the art

studio as central to the identity of an artist in her

paper ‘Female artistic identity in place: the studio’. Bain stated that

women artists permitted an overlapping of activities, and

a mix of uses and users of their studio workspaces (Bain

2004, p.190). In the case studies that Bain researched,

the female artists who were mothers worked from their

homes, and in most cases, shared their art making space

with others. Their parenting responsibilities, along with

time and financial constraints, necessitated art making

40

within the domestic realm (Bain 2004, p. 189). While this

arrangement may not be seen as ideal in an art world

which places importance of studio space as integral to an

artist’s identity, for some women artists, this is the

only option. However, this redefinition of the ‘studio’

space for female artists has contributed positively to

the shift in subject matter for the artist to include the

‘lived experience’ of motherhood.

This investigation of subject matter exploring individual

artist identities as experienced through motherhood,

offers an important contribution in terms of

understanding the traversal of mother/artist roles and

the creative process that forms part of this model. This

model gives permission for artists to locate artistic

practice at the intersection of the mother/artist

identities, investigating private ritual as grounds for

creative process. Further, this model emphasises that

motherhood as subject matter contributes to a reordering

of gender identities for mother/artists in relation to

feminist art discourse, and impacts the subversion of

male/female dichotomies that exist within contemporary

visual art.

41

CHAPTER THREE – Dichotomies of Motherhood as Subject Matter in Installation Art

Chapter Three discusses the ways that contemporary

artists use everyday rituals in installation art to bring

the private world of mothering into the public realm. The

chapter draws on feminist aesthetic perspectives to

explain how the blurring of public and private boundaries

contributes to the subversion of patriarchal limitations

placed on the motherhood subject matter. In developing

this premise, the proposition of a maternal aesthetic as

a subversion of the patriarchal positioning, and how this

is used to deconstruct these boundaries between ‘public’

and ‘private’ activities will be explored (Gottner-

Abendroth in Ross 1994). For example, women installation

artists use family relationships and rituals that happen

in their ‘private’ domestic space, as subject matter.

Through this process, artists change the visibility of

women’s art from invisible labour, to a relevant

contribution to visual art. On the other hand, the

mother/artist operates within the private space of the

home, while her art works are shown in a public arena.

This, in itself is a dichotomy because the artist’s

private identity as explored within subject matter

becomes open to public judgement, although only within

parameters prescribed by the artist. Case studies of

installation artists Lenka Clayton and Courtney Kessel

will provide examples of both the blurring of boundaries

within ‘private and public’ used by mother artists, and

42

the dichotomies of the motherhood identity explored as

subject matter.

3.1 Blurring the Boundaries of Public and Private Action

Within feminist art discourse, the ‘private’ realm of the

mother has been undervalued (Liss 2009). The realm was

considered a taboo subject matter because of patriarchal

assumptions that the mother’s perspective is too obvious

and trivial (Liss 2009, p. xvi). In light of this

argument, within existing hierarchies regarding the

relevance of ‘public’ versus ‘private’, public is

considered to be more important because it is

automatically related to ‘rational’ masculine structure.

This contrasts the ‘private’ as personal and therefore,

emotional. Spivak argues that feminist activity

participates in the deconstruction of the opposition

between the private and the public. When explaining the

constitutions of our culture, Spivak defines ‘public’

sector as activities and institutions which involve the

political, social, professional, economic and

intellectual arenas. Conversely, ‘private’ encompasses

that which is emotional, sexual, domestic, religious, or

related to art and art criticism (Spivak 2006, p.139).

Feminist dialogue seeks to oppose the hierarchical

imbalance that ‘public’ activities are more rational,

masculine and therefore more important (Spivak 2006,

p.140).

43

Spivak’s discussion on the deconstruction of public and

private boundaries is useful to my exegesis in addressing

how the mother/artist identity participates in the

subversion of patriarchal ideologies. The mother/artist

identity deconstructs the opposition between private and

public by relating ‘private’ emotional, sexual or

domestic ideals to practice-led research which

participates in the typecast ‘public’ intellectual,

social and (art) political fields.

The proposition of a maternal aesthetic as explored by

philosopher Heide Gottner-Abendroth, further contributes

to the rethinking of private and public boundaries, as

well as an alternative and a rupture to patriarchal

aesthetics and ideologies. The maternal aesthetic, as

Gottner-Abendroth understands it, is art that attempts to

change psychic and social reality using mythology and

social action (Gottner-Abendroth in Ross 1994, p. 564).

For example, Jill Miller’s social practice performance

The Milk Truck (2011) (Fig #11) exists for mothers who are

made to feel uncomfortable breastfeeding in public

places. The embarrassed mother calls The Milk Truck to ‘host

a spontaneous breastfeeding party at the site of the

offending establishment, raising awareness of the

continued coding of the breast as sexual but not functional in

public space’ (Loveless 2012, p. 6).

44

Figure #11

This work participates in the maternal aesthetic by

exposing how bodily functions of mothering are undermined

in ‘public’, and by the patriarchal ‘gaze’ that looks on

the woman’s body as sexual. Work such as this can

instigate change in social and cultural taboos.

Therefore, Gottner-Abendroth’s maternal aesthetic

proposes women’s art as an important social activity, a

rejection of fictionality which is implicit in

patriarchal art theory, and a blurring of boundaries

which existed in patriarchy: ‘All participants (in

maternal aesthetic) operate simultaneously on the levels

of emotional identification, theoretical reflection and

symbolic action’ (Gottner-Abendroth in Ross 1994, p.

567). Research such as this suggests that the emotional

and symbolic subjects that are implicit in the ‘private’

domestic world of the mother artist, and the theoretical

discourses within the art canon are no longer divided.

This idea has implications for the ‘visibility’ of

practice for female artists who use motherhood as subject

matter. It becomes a visibility that is an active

45

empowerment of women, rather than a passive visibility

under the ‘patriarchal gaze’. However, the central

important premise is that artists who use the domestic

world of mothering as subject matter are rejecting

fictional assumptions about mothers, by reinterpreting

domesticity as a form of subversion.

3.2 Innovative Mother/Artist Strategies in the Work of

Lenka Clayton

Artist Lenka Clayton uses everyday life as her subject

matter. The artist categorizes objects that are left over

from the mothering role, to highlight their banal

absurdity, and in doing so, grounding the objects within

everyday life (Clayton 2014). In 2012, Clayton began a

funded residency entitled ‘An Artist’s Residency in Motherhood’ to

address what she found as a lack of opportunities for

artists who had children to attend residencies outside

the home. ‘An Artist’s Residency in Motherhood’ was conducted in

the artist’s home so that she could fulfil her parenting

responsibilities without the financial burden of

childcare costs, while participating in a residency as

practice-led research. As well, Clayton could investigate

and utilise the subject matter existing between the

mother role and artist role more closely by being at

home. Clayton believed that the roles of ‘serious’

artists and engaged mothers were not mutually exclusive,

that one was in fact, able to inform the other (Clayton

2012). This ‘integration’ of practice as mothers and

artists has been evidenced through work such as that in 46

the U.S. ‘New Maternalisms’ 2012 exhibition, and curator

Natalie Loveless explains the artist’s intention: ‘By

taking seriously the need to create from local and

embodied conditions, these practices bring visibility and

value to the maternal in and as art’ (Loveless 2012,

p.4).

I return now to Clayton’s idea that situating artistic

practice within the domestic home subverts the art-

world’s romanticised patriarchal norm. Importance should

be placed on Clayton’s use of the words ‘valuable site’

and ‘invisible labour’. While these terms refer to

patriarchal hierarchies, they also point to the more

positive idea that utilising motherhood as subject matter

makes it visible and valuable, and therefore reasserts

its power within dialogue. This is important because it

makes space within visual art dialogue for an entire

social group who offer innovative perspectives on what

constitutes art practice.

Within this residency, Clayton used the fractured and

sometimes monotonous aspect of everyday motherhood as

subject matter in a positive way. In doing so, Clayton

exposed fictional assumptions about the idealised

mother/artist. These assumptions include that having a

new baby is a blissful, nurturing time where the mother

will have time to themselves, and time to make art

(Loveless 2012, p.6). Further, Clayton subverts the

mistaken assumption that mothers ‘lose’ their capacity

for creativity and critical thinking when they give 47

birth, as demonstrated in Battersby’s discussion on women

typecast as the ‘procreator’ in Chapter One. In fact,

according to Liss, sometimes the new nurturing

relationship with one’s child reveals new perspectives

for contemporary artists: the passions for one’s child

opens up new perspectives and forms of living and being,

leading to an inter-subjectivity that begins with the

mother-child relationship (Liss 2009, p xvii, p.xx). It

is this blurring of boundaries that challenges

assumptions that motherhood and creative practice can

ever be separate, and that critical thinking no longer

endures after a woman gives birth.

As part of the residency, Clayton wrote stories about the

‘intersection of art and motherhood’, and her work

Maternity Leave (2012) (Fig #12) investigated this

intersection. Maternity Leave (2012) (Fig #12) was a

durational performance at the Carnegie Museum of Art,

Pittsburgh, and included a baby monitor which emitted the

sound of the artist’s domestic world in which she had an

eight week old baby. By bringing actual real life sounds

of the domestic home into the museum context, the work

highlighted the blurred boundary of private action and

public spectatorship, as well as exposing realities

inherent in the mother artist role (Clayton 2012).

Further, Clayton’s work provides an example of innovative

creative models of practice located in the process of

traversing mother/artist roles.

48

Figure #12

In 63 Objects taken from my Son's Mouth (2011-2012) (Fig #13),

Clayton documented the objects she removed from her son’s

mouth due to safety concerns. When reviewing Clayton’s

work, as part of the exhibition at MOCA Cleveland,

curator Megan Lykins Reich discussed the artist’s process

as working within the physical and emotional spaces

surrounding her, often starting with a simple idea or

mundane object, in order to draw out hidden, lost, or new

meaning and transformative outcomes. In this work,

Clayton has used everyday tasks and objects from the

mothering role, but has transformed the objects,

including rat poison, coins and rocks, with new meanings

such as ‘danger’ versus ‘care’ (Lykins Reich 2013, p.

32). Clayton’s exhibition of these objects within an art

context conveys new meanings and dichotomies concerning

how the standard of a mother’s care is judged by how

‘safe’ her household environment is kept by her. This

work challenges assumptions about the nurturing mother

49

role by revealing its realities in a positive light.

These assumptions impact the mother/artist identity in a

positive or negative way depending on how the artist

chooses to reinvent the subject matter. In this way,

Clayton’s work participates in my central premise that

the mother/artist can translate the role into

installation art which suggests personal narrative based

on ritual. This is an innovative model in creative

process where the mother/artist can manipulate the

subject matter through alternative roles based on ritual.

Figure #13

Similar to Lenka Clayton’s premise, the work of Courtney

Kessel also uses the subject matter of the motherhood

role, but extends it by making explicit the dichotomies

that the mother/artist experiences. Further, Kessel

includes her child in the art making process to build on

the mother/child relationship and thereby demonstrates a

50

unique process through traversing mother/child

identities.

3.3 Dichotomies within Innovative Mother/Artist

Strategies of Courtney Kessel

This case study of Courtney Kessel further examines the

dichotomies inherent within the motherhood identity by

exposing how the artist translates the delicate balance

between art practice and motherhood. The artist’s

statement articulates her positioning in relation to

making motherhood practice visible within systems of

patriarchal society:

Through sculpture, performance, video, and sound, I perform a visibility that, in normative patriarchal society, is preferred to remain invisible. The question of feminist form transcends the product and is inclusiveof my practice and methodology. In doing this, a slippage occurs where the separation of studio activity and domestic responsibility is blurred (Kessel 2012).

Kessel’s work investigates notions of attachment and

separation of mother from child, and the individual

agency of both mother and child. In this case study, I

focus on one particular work In Balance With (2010) (Fig #1 &

Fig #14). This performance work included a sixteen foot

timber seesaw. The artist placed her own daughter, along

with items from their home, on one end. Kessel then

climbed onto the other end of the seesaw to check whether

they had achieved balance. The items presented in the

51

work In Balance With (2010) (Fig #14) include saucepans, art

books, dirty laundry, children’s books and food. The

work demonstrates the delicate balance of artistic

practice of a mother/artist, through the creative process

of reorienting domestic duties and care. Furthermore,

this work is particularly useful as a model of practice

that uses the inclusion of the artist’s own child, as it

provides intimate insight into the mother/child

relationship as grounds for subject matter. Through an

artist talk at Roy G Biv Gallery in Ohio, USA, Kessel

stated that she included her daughter in the work to

allow for time spent together. She did this to give

agency to her daughter by showing the change in

individualism for the child over time (Kessel 2012). The

complex dichotomy is clearly shown here by including

interactions within the mother/child relationship, and

changes in her daughter’s individual identity, in a

subject matter dialogue within the one work. That is, the

artist has made time to develop the relationship with her

child and has then used this interaction as subject

matter for work which redefines the identity of the

artist to include mothers. This work offers an example of

blurring the boundaries, and challenging the conventional

separation, of private and public. Further, the work

contributes to a shift in the art canon regarding what

constitutes acceptable subject matter for contemporary

female artists. Therefore, the work is significant

because female artists were previously reluctant to use

52

motherhood as their subject matter for fear of being

perceived as not a ‘serious’ artist (Lippard 2012, p.81).

In this light mother/artist can develop relevant and

original work from the very experience of interweaving

motherhood and artistic practice. The fresh perspective

here is that the mother/artist can also manipulate this

intersection to create innovative subject matter which

explores alternative roles that could offer new

perspectives to other artists. Within this, the work

discussed offers an example of personal narratives that

address gender roles and personal relationships from the

mothering role, used within new rituals to explore the

complexity of the mother and child relationship.

Figure #14

CHAPTER FOUR – Mothering Rituals as Creative

Models in Contemporary Installation Art

53

Chapter Four addresses the process of art-making that

utilises ritual as a site for the production of a

personal narrative, within installation art for the

mother/artist. Rituals performed within the mothering

role sometimes involve the use of objects, or detritus of

an activity. Artists can utilise the conceptual object as

a ‘relic’ of that ritual. In this way, the remnant

‘relic’ is instilled with meaning related to the ritual

or narrative explored. This premise will be further

developed through examination of how artists Cornelia

Parker and Danielle Hobbs use installations of an object

as a relic of a ritual. While Parker’s work explores the

inclusive environment of the installation and the power

of the relic, Hobbs reinterprets ritual and produces new

conceptual meanings which are translated to objects as

relics. The chapter proposes a role for the

mother/artist as keeper, facilitator and manipulator of

memory. This role is based on rituals occurring within

mother/child relationships, manipulated by the mother to

her facilitate her own creative process. The role is the

catalyst to explore the possibility of new subject matter

located at the juncture between motherhood and artistic

practice. Through this role, the mother/artist

manipulates alternative meaning within their usual

personal narrative, in the form of metaphorical or

symbolic narratives. Within the feminine strand of

psychoanalysis, the work of Nancy Chodorow will be used

to analyse the mother’s role in socialisation constructs

54

of the child, to understand how the mother/artist can

manipulate these constructs. This analysis will explain

the intersection in the traversal of mother/artist roles

where the proposed role begins, as part of creative

process. Through analysis of my own work, this research

provides a model for innovative creative process within

practice-led methodologies for contemporary artists.

4.1 Ritual and Relic-Exploring Motherhood in My

Installation Practice

Inside the domestic realm, complex family relationships

exist between father and child, between siblings, and

between mother and child. Focusing on the mother/child

relationship is particularly useful because of the

complex emotional and bodily feeling involved with

carrying the child within the body, the process of

childbirth, and the impact of this experience on the

relationship. Everyday rituals are experienced by mothers

and children, either individually, or as an interaction

between them. Rituals such as playing, reading or craft

activities may hold a capacity for creativity. Otherwise,

they may be mundane, such as bathing, eating or dressing.

For the mother/artist, these rituals can be observed,

reinterpreted and manipulated to produce artwork that

conveys personal stories or narrative with new or

elaborated meanings, often distorting the reality of an

event. This creative process is the basis of my proposed

mother/artist role as keeper, facilitator and manipulator

of memory. The subtleties of each ritual, which may at 55

first, appear mundane, offer grounds for the

mother/artist to produce new codes of manipulated meaning

at the intersection of mothering and artistic practice,

as a fresh perspective. An example of my own work

Manipulating Memory (2013) (Fig #5 & #6)shows the

subtleties of meaning in the mother-daughter ritual of

hair care, manipulated to make clear the social and

cultural undercurrents that exist in the mundane, as

discussed in the following analysis.

My own video installation work Manipulating Memory (2013)

(Fig #5 & #6) depicts the everyday domestic ritual of

unknotting and braiding the hair of my daughter. The

ritual of braiding the hair of girls and women is in

itself loaded with historical, cultural, political and

gendered meanings, it is never just for fashion (Bordo in

Alaimo & Hekman 2008, p.409). In this light, the ritual

of braiding in this work has different social meanings

for each participant, such as concern for image for the

daughter, versus control and tradition for the mother.

This relates to the dichotomy explored by Kessel, by

giving agency to the individual identity of the child,

while exploring complex undercurrents implicit in the

mother/daughter relationship. In the narrative of my

work, my daughter regards the complexity of the braid,

and the neatness of the finished product, as important

for the image she projects to her peers. There is also an

element of personal significance for her, because she is

learning a skill which is part of female tradition, while

56

participating in a ritual that enables her to have

bonding time with her mother. For a twelve year old girl,

the ritual of having hair braided, and learning to braid

hair from your mother, is a complex exchange which

involves status both within family and peer group, along

with personal memory and traditions.

I record and install the process of braiding in video

form to amplify the complexity in meaning that this

ritual holds. The work considers meanings of care, which

are undermined by cultural expectations of the ‘perfect’

or ‘good’ mother whose children are well presented.

Further, the work offers the viewer a glimpse of the

complexities within the mother/daughter relationship.

These complexities include the bonding process versus the

change that occurs within the relationship when the

daughter asserts her independence in the development of

her identity, and the subsequent loss of control that the

mother experiences. This contradiction and shift in the

mother’s role over time is not always easy to reconcile,

especially in light of research which consolidates this

dichotomy: ‘a sense of identity is best formulated within

a family system that balances closeness with

encouragement toward autonomy and individuation’ (Smith,

Mullis & Hill 1995, p. 495). This offers an example of

the underlying subtleties within ritual that can be used

as a site for personal narrative, and the subject matter

that exists in the experiences of mothering

relationships. Manipulating Memory (2013) involves Liss’

57

proposal to incorporate the mother’s ‘lived experience’

to breach taboos of ‘too personal’ subject matter, by

exposing the individual identities and relationship

complexities, and using these as the basis for

manipulated narratives.

The ritual of braiding and unknotting in Manipulating

Memory (2013) (Fig #5 & #6) resulted in ‘relics’

including a hairbrush and hair, which show the aftermath

of the ritual. Objects carry conceptual significance

according to their implied situational use. Revisiting

Lenka Clayton’s work 63 Objects taken from my Son's Mouth (2011-

2012) (Fig #13) gives an example of ritual which is

translated through conceptual objects to achieve layered

meaning. The actual ritual of close observation of a

toddler’s every move, and the removal of objects from

their mouth to prevent choking, although essential, is in

itself repetitive and mundane. Clayton highlights this

mundaneness through her installation of the sheer number

of objects removed, therefore emphasizing the time spent

in protecting her child. The conceptual meaning within

the vast array of objects included in Clayton’s

installation such as rat poison, nuts and bolts each

provide a narrative about the everyday activities of

mother and child, and the anxieties of danger which exist

in the mothering role. Megan Lykins Reich describes these

anxieties of early motherhood when relating to Clayton’s

experience: ‘I existed in a liminal space filled with

58

joy, confusion, pain, and anxiety’ (Lykins Reich 2013,

p.1).

This process of reinterpreting mothering rituals produces

new conceptual meanings and metaphors that can be

translated to objects as relics of this process.

Installation art, in particular, allows for a dialogue

between ritual and relic to be viewed within the same

space. Cornelia Parker’s installation The Maybe (1995)

(Fig #15) is an example of what the artist calls a

distinctly feminine ‘inclusive environment’ (Tickner

2003, p.368). Within this work, the actress Tilda Swinton

slept in a glass case, while various relics surrounded

the case, with labels including ‘the rug and pillow from

Freud’s couch’. The conceptual history and value of the

objects from ‘famous’ people, together with the sleeping

performance, were brought together by the artist to

trigger meaning regarding the lure of celebrity and

relics (Lovatt 2013, p. 306).

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Figure #15

Other artists reinterpret rituals that occur at the

intersection of the artist/mother roles, and transfer the

new meanings produced from this process onto objects or

relics. Australian artist Danielle Hobbs creates relics

with conceptual meaning, drawing on her personal

experiences of becoming a mother. Hobbs’ work Fight or Flight

(2013) (Fig #16) is a girl’s capelet with a protective

tooth collar that serves as talisman for protection, and

as a transformative garment as coping mechanism for

trauma. Hobbs created this work in response to her

diagnosis with Post Natal Depression, and the works refer

to the ‘subtle but sometimes seismic schism that occurs

when a woman becomes a mother; often physically

unchanged, but mentally and psychologically moved beyond

recognition’ (Hobbs on Black Swan 2014). Hobbs’ objects

carry meaning relating to the fears of the new mother

60

that she cannot prevent harm to her child. Through the

creation of protective garments and talismans, the artist

as mother is able to create a metaphorical world where

her children are shielded from harm (Hobbs on Shift

2014). This concept relates to the idea that the

mother/artist can transform personal narratives into

‘manipulations’ that portray new perspectives, such as

adopting a shaman persona in the case of Hobbs. My

proposed role of mother as keeper, facilitator and

manipulator of memory takes this creative strategy as its

basis.

Figure #16

4.2 Keeper, Facilitator and Manipulator of Memory:

Redefining Mother/Artist Identities

At this juncture, I offer an explanation of the

artist/mother’s role as keeper, facilitator and

manipulator of memory, and how this model offers new

perspectives in creative process and outcomes for

mother/artists. This role is mother-centred, that is,

relationships and rituals that take place in the

61

childhood home environment are subject matter that is

manipulated by the mother to her own advantage. In this

way, the mother/artist role exists as an assertion of

empowerment, overcoming assumptions that her work in this

sphere is undervalued.

To begin the manipulation of memory, the mother ‘keeps’

memory by recording ritual through images, video,

artefacts and mementos. The mother ‘facilitates’ the

formation of memory in the way she chooses and organises

the books, toys, music, people, and experiences that the

child is exposed to. This process is important in the

development of socialisation of the child. Sherry Ortner

states that in Nancy Chodorow’s writing on ‘Family Structure

and Feminine Personality’, Chodorow argues that human psychic

structure is not innate, but rather is generated by a

system of ‘universal’ female socialisation experiences

(Chodorow in Ortner 1972, p. 26). That is, the

psychological structure is not genetically programmed,

but is learned through identification with the mother in

traditional domestic structures where the mother is a

primary carer. However, this is where the persona of the

mother/artist as ‘manipulator’ of memory intervenes in

the process, and the manipulation of memory begins. This

process is not for the child, but about the rituals

existing in the mother role. The rituals that exist at

this intersection can then be used by the mother/artist

as manipulator of memory. For example, it is at this

intersection that the mother/artist reads a child’s book

62

but changes the plot to suit herself or to entertain her

child, or she edits photographs and objects kept to show

only the best, or worst of a situation. Although

subjectivity as a result of social conditioning will

always exist in this mother/child exchange, editing

stories and images can be also about bonding and nuanced

connections, and a break from the prescribed role that

comes with creative play. The mother/artist can change

the depiction of an event to create a new narrative in

which the child is the hero or the victim. Conversely,

the mother/artist can locate a unique narrative that

provides an alternative reality where the mother

successfully teaches the child something after the fact,

if she was not successful the first time. Therefore this

is her chance to show how she really wanted the memory to

be. I return to my work Manipulating Memory (2013) (Fig #5

& #6) as an example of the location of important subject

matter that arguably lies at the intersection between

recording, facilitating and/or manipulating memory.

Within this work, I have ‘manipulated’ through devising

the ritual to interrogate dichotomies inherent in the

mothering role. The neat, tidy, complicated nature of the

braiding video is displayed opposite the pulling,

unknotting of hair in the second video, to allow the

viewer to see the undercurrent of the mother who means

well, but unknowingly inflicts pain on her child.

The notion of the mother/artist as manipulator of memory

that I propose may be viewed as the perpetration of a

63

myth. Feminist critic Estella Lauter has stated that

mythology in recent visual art was the result of a

collective female experience that women missed out on

throughout previous patriarchal experience. Lauter also

explains the use of myth in collective women’s art as

essential to the formation of culture’s symbolic code

(Lauter 1984, p. 208). In this light, the creation of

myth within the manipulator of memory persona is critical

to the construction of new codes of meaning within

subject matter and creative process for contemporary

artists. The utilisation of ritual and relic as subject

matter to build new symbolic meaning in installation art

reinforces the identity of the mother artist in her own

right. This reinforced mother artist identity overcomes

the limitations of gender inherited from patriarchal

structures in art, and blurs the boundaries of public and

private, while contributing to an assertive, collective

female mythology in light of a new symbolic code. This

new symbolic code involves re-orienting domestic rituals

and personal narrative as innovative and relevant sites

in installation art. In this way, the traversal of the

mother/artist identity stands as a useful model to

reinstate a creative space between motherhood and art

practice.

64

CHAPTER FIVE – Conclusion

The process of traversing the mother/artist identity has

been discussed through theoretical research, contemporary

art case studies and analysis, and the discussion of my

practice in this context, as a useful model for providing

mother/artists with permission to reinstate a creative

space between motherhood and art practice. Through the

work of Lenka Clayton, Courtney Kessel and Danielle

Hobbs, this empirical research has demonstrated the

reorientation of domestic rituals and personal narrative

as new and relevant sites within installation art, to

blur the boundaries of the private and public sphere.

This research has significantly contributed to

understanding how contemporary artists have overcome

historical limitations of patriarchy to lead a shift to

motherhood as visual art subject matter that has, until

recently, been a relatively taboo subject. Historically,

negative impacts on female creativity have come about

partly because of male gendering of genius. Qualitative

research methodologies through empirical research based

on independent perspectives such as Christine Battersby

and Gayatri Spivak, have demonstrated how sociocultural,

gender based and political discourse impact the mother

identity in art. Feminist theorist Christine Battersby

has articulated that psychoanalytical perspectives

contributed to reducing the creative power of females.

65

This occurred by normalising women’s creative,

intellectual and moral subordination as a ‘natural’

resolution of the Oedipus complex proposed by Freud.

Battersby also described Lacanian representations of

women as ‘not masculine’ and therefore outside of

creativity, as contributing to the portrayal of women as

‘other’ as related to the body, versus the male as

related to the mind.

Throughout the past forty years, feminist theory and

gender discourse have contributed to a positive shift in

the notion of motherhood within visual art. Female

artists who were influenced by the Women’s Liberation

Movement in the 1960’s began to make art in a challenge

to male dominated society. Collectives such as

‘Womanhouse’ made work that interrogated the perceived

role of women by utilising previously ‘taboo’ subject

matter relating to becoming and being a mother. Through

their work, female artists in the 1970’s investigated the

impact of social restrictions, such as lack of childcare,

on artistic practice. During this time, female artists

were ambivalent about using motherhood as subject matter

because of existing patriarchal assumptions that becoming

a mother meant a loss of creativity.

An analysis of social and cultural patriarchal ideologies

concluded that ‘otherness’ exists when female artists are

considered outside of socially constructed institutions

of male power. While motherhood as subject matter is at

risk of being classed as ‘outside’ patriarchal structures66

of modes of production, Gayatri Spivak proposes a

solution to this problem. Spivak suggests that to reverse

the search for validity via production, women’s work and

research should be neither fully domestic, nor fully

located within patriarchal modes of production. Instead,

this work should investigate the space between mother and

artist identities.

Further, it can be concluded that contemporary female

artists are leading a shift in subject matter regarding

motherhood. The mother artist uses the lived experience

of motherhood to shift away from its association with

feminism and patriarchal ideals within art discourse.

Contemporary visual art depicts the effects of birth and

nurturing on the body, and stand as examples of the shift

towards breaking the taboo of including mothering as

subject matter. The shift extends to the definition of

‘studio space’ for mother artists. Time and financial

constraints, as well as child care responsibilities have

facilitated a move toward researching and making art

within the domestic realm itself. Rather than a negative

shift, this has contributed positively to the shift in

subject matter for the artist to include personal

narratives and experiences of motherhood. This shift also

contributes to creative process methodologies in

practice-led research.

Within our culture, ‘public’ is that which encompasses

social, professional, political and intellectual arenas.

‘Private’ realms include that which is emotional or 67

domestic. Feminist dialogue seeks to oppose the

patriarchal assumption that public is more rational,

masculine and important, and that ‘private’ is restricted

to the feminine. The mother/artist identity deconstructs

this opposition by relating ‘private’ emotional, sexual

or domestic ideals to practice-led research which

participates in ‘public’ intellectual, social and (art)

political fields, therefore producing work which blurs

the boundaries of private and public. The proposition of

a maternal aesthetic utilises public performances and art

to reject patriarchal assumptions of fictionality within

the mother identity by exposing how mothering is

undermined. Through this work, emotional and symbolic

subjects that are implicit in the ‘private’ domestic

world of the mother artist are exposed and become

embedded in theoretical discourses. Empirical

practitioner accounts from artists such as Lenka Clayton

challenge patriarchal assumptions of the motherhood role

by revealing its realities in a positive light. These

artists use everyday tasks and objects from the mothering

role, and transform them with new meanings. This exists

as a relevant model for locating subject matter at the

intersection of the mother/artist role. Other artists

such as Courtney Kessel translate the dichotomies of the

mothering role into visual form. Through her work, Kessel

has used the interaction between herself and her child,

both to develop their relationship, and as subject matter

which redefines the identity of the artist to include

68

mothers. The fresh perspective offered by this research

is that the mother artist can manipulate the intersection

between motherhood and art practice to create alternative

roles, to offer new perspectives in creative practice for

other artists.

Everyday rituals experienced between mother and child can

be observed and reinterpreted to produce artworks that

convey narrative with new meanings that can be

manipulated by the artist. This forms the basis of my

proposed role as keeper, facilitator and manipulator of

memory as an innovative model for creative process. The

subtleties within each ritual offer grounds for the

production of new codes of manipulated meaning at the

intersection of mothering and creative practice. An

analysis of my work Manipulating Memory (2013) (Fig #5 & #6)

followed autoethnographic research methods whereby my

personal experience of ritual in the mother/daughter

relationship provided context for social and cultural

issues such as gendered meanings and tradition, and the

implications of these for innovative creative practice.

Subtle social or cultural codes inherent in each

mothering ritual can be elaborated or changed by the

mother artist to produce new narrative structures as

subject matter. Objects as leftover material of these

rituals carry conceptual significance according to their

use. The practice of reinterpreting mothering ritual can

be transferred to objects as ‘relics’ of this process.

Installation art allows for a dialogue of ritual and

69

relic within a common space. The objects as relics can

also be transformed to support new roles or personas that

the mother artist may adopt as part of the manipulation

of meaning as subject matter.

The model of the mother/artist’s role as keeper,

facilitator and manipulator of memory is based on a

mother-centred perspective. The mother/artist records and

manipulates memory by choosing particular activities for

her child in an important role of socialisation.

Importantly, at this intersection, the mother/artist can

edit or change the depiction of the ritual to create a

new narrative which may highlight social undercurrents or

create a new mythology. Mythologies such as this have a

critical role in constructing new codes of meaning within

subject matter. This new symbolic meaning created within

the traversal of mother/artist roles through the use of

ritual and relic reinforces the mother artist identity.

This reinforced identity not only overcomes inherited

gender limitations, but creates new codes of meaning in

subject matter and models of contemporary art practice,

as innovative perspectives for other artists.

70

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78

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure #1: Courtney Kessel, In Balance With, 2010.

Figure #2: Marni Kotak, The Birth Of Baby X, 2011.

Figure #3: Karen Le Coq & Nancy Youdelman, Leah’s Room

(Womanhouse), 1972.

Figure #4: Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document

(detail), 1973-79.

Figure #5: Linda Clark, Manipulating Memory, video

still, 2013.

Figure #6: Linda Clark, Manipulating Memory, video

still, 2013.

Figure #7: Judy Chicago, Menstruation Bathroom

(Womanhouse), 1972.

Figure #8: Feminist Art Program Performance Group,

The Birth Trilogy, 1972.

Figure #9: Mother Art Collective, Laundry Works,

1977.

Figure #10: Dominika Dzikowska, Warm, Wet Velvet,

2009-2013.

Figure #11: Jill Miller, The Milk Truck, 2011.

Figure #12: Lenka Clayton, Maternity Leave, 2012.

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Figure #13: Lenka Clayton, 63 Objects taken from my Son's

Mouth, 2011-2012.

Figure #14: Courtney Kessel, In Balance With

(Detail), 2010.

Figure #15: Cornelia Parker, The Maybe, 1995.

Figure #16: Danielle Hobbs, Fight or Flight, 2013.

80