Forgive Me I’m a Mother
Forgive Me I’m a Mother BFA Thesis Support Paper, OCAD University, April 2019
An invitation to a different kind of cocktail party. This paper, written at the end of my BFA, imagines a gathering of those marked by the labour of mothering alongside the artists, theorists, and writers who have shaped my thinking about the maternal gaze. It moves through Sally Mann, Mary Kelly, Catherine Opie, Andrea O’Reilly, and Virginia Woolf to argue for a practice that looks outward from mothering rather than at it. The conversation that started here has not yet ended.
Special thanks must go to my advisor Anda Kubis for her support and mentorship over the past year, and to my studio mate Ben Uden, who taught me almost as much.