Curating ‘Creative Dystocia’: Exhibiting the Relationship between Artists, Identity and Motherhood in Twenty-first Century Australian Art

Abstract

The past five years have seen a reinvigoration of debate regarding the significance and impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, suggesting that this remains unfinished business for feminism and feminist researchers. Such conversation reflects an ambivalent and ambiguous relationship between motherhood, art and creative identity. While a number of artist-driven initiatives tackling these ongoing concerns have emerged in the United Kingdom and United States, responses in Australia have been less clearly defined. Suspicious of essentialist arguments regarding the maternal in second wave feminist art, contemporary artists are just as likely to address motherhood as an industrial issue as a philosophical position or symbolic motif, suggesting a strategic negotiation of motherhood. Building on previous research analysing the barriers that inhibit women artists in Australia and the creative strategies they employ, this article applies a blended methodological approach to map the current relationship between artists and motherhood. It outlines the curatorial development of an upcoming feminist group exhibition Creative Dystocia, discusses a sample of contemporary artists, and contextualises these historically and conceptually. The intention of this developing curatorial project is to interrupt dominant narratives of motherhood in the Australian context to provide a more deeply textured account of contemporary artists’ experiences of motherhood and art-making.