If until just a few decades ago the canon of Western art history included few women artists, it counted even fewer mother artists. Long a taboo subject, if not a career ender, in recent years a profound cultural shift has occurred, so now many artists—as well as writers, poets, and filmmakers—are making mothering both the subject and condition of their work. 

Tara McDowell examines the rich, fraught terrain of mothering and art. She traces an expanded conception of mothering in art, from the bodily and psychic transformations of becoming a mother (whether physically giving birth or otherwise) to collective mothering (in solidarity with non-biological mothering and surrogacy, and with reproductive and domestic labour, queer mothering, and Indigenous matriarchies). This is followed by a close reading of D and Kate Harding’s 2021 exhibition Through a Lens of Visitation, at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne.