Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood

'Mystery, profundity, love, grief and amazement: not a work in this show achieves anything less.'

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Guardian 

This exhibition from Hayward Gallery Touring, curated by writer and critic Hettie Judah, plunged into the joys and heartaches, mess, myths and mishaps of motherhood through over 100 artworks, from the feminist avant-garde to the present day.

While the Madonna and Child is one of the great subjects of European art, we rarely see art about motherhood as a lived experience, in all its complexity. Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood addressed this blind spot in art history, asserting the artist mother as an important – if rarely visible – cultural figure.

The exhibition approached motherhood as a creative enterprise, one at times tempered by ambivalence, exhaustion or grief. Addressing diverse experiences of motherhood, the displays spanned themes of creation, caregiving and loss. The heart of the exhibition was a series of revelatory self-portraits – a celebration of the artist as mother.

Acts of Creation presented painting, photography, sculpture, sound and film by more than sixty modern and contemporary artists, including Bobby Baker, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Susan Hiller, Chantal Joffe, Claudette Johnson and Paula Rego. 

Read the Guardian review here 

Guidance for visitors:

Artworks in this exhibition addressed important issues surrounding women’s health and wellbeing, including nudity, childbirth, (in)fertility, miscarriage, abortion, loss, domestic abuse, adoption, sterilisation and obstetric violence.