Artist Eti Wade discusses "The Maternal Gaze" at The Front Room Gallery, Troikay Editions, London 13th January 2011

Eti Wade

Good Night Boys by Eti Wade

Some of the mothers artist that attended to the talk, me on the left hand side corner bitting my nails.



Eti Wade is an artist, photography lecturer and head of the Photography MA at Thames Valley University.

This event was organized in conjunction with artist Martina Mullaney, founder of Enemies of Good Art. Enemies of Good Art is a group which seeks to investigate the possibilities of combining parenthood and the artistic practise. In particular it seeks to encourage participation by parents and their children in a series of public discussions and art based events.

The subject of the dicussion was mothers photographing their children and why being this an everyday occurrence it is not often that the maternal view is put on display. In her talk Eti surveyed the exposing mother, from Lady Clementina Hawarden to Sally Mann, to identify common themes and suggest interpretations of the social unease accompanying the maternal gaze.

As a conclusion on this talk I have to say:

Many women artists like to get their children involved in the artwork and many of the times the children are portrayed in the actual piece. Everything Eta said about the difficult feelings about the maternal made sense to me, however I think our children do not have necessarily to be the artwork or appear on it. The "unfair" representation of the mother in society it is something that we mothers have to deal with it, I don't think our children needs to be part of it, I can't say never but I'm not happy with the idea of putting my daughter in the scene when representing my feelings. My daughter is intimately mine but clearly her own self as well.  I can't use her as way to understand myself, it will not be fair on her.