Title:               Maternal Instincts II (A Politics of the Heart)

Medium:         Oil on Canvas

Size:               91cm x 91cm

Year:               2020

Artist Statement

“There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me, it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me”

Tony Morrison[1]

Inspired from the novels by Tony Morrison,  I looked back at my own motherhood experience. From being a working mother in a traditional family set up, juggling my career and child bearing to being thrown into a single motherhood, battling social stigma and negative perception to transforming into a mother in a blended family, maneuvering awkward moments and politics of the heart. Reflecting back, I realized that the only thing that stays the same is how the bonding of motherhood goes beyond physicality of the situation, that it forms an instinctive feeling in me. Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me—whatever that was—but somebody actually needed me to be that. My children who have gone through the deep ends with me then re-surfacing together, to actually feel unconditionally loved and to love unconditionally liberates me to be who I am today.

This painting is about the instinctive nature of motherhood visualised in myriads of colors that looks like a kaleidoscope that builds upon layers and layers of diffracted lights. The mixture of soft and hard lines created a certain dynamic energy of these experiences. This is a diptych oil on canvas painting measuring 91cm x91cm each. Each painting can stand on its own but they are also related to each other, giving different perspectives on the liberating nature of being a mother.

[1]Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart by Andrea O Reilly, SUNY Press, 2004, 229 pages