“Matrescence: Becoming Mother Nature” (2024)

Abstract:

Exploring monumental transition, creation, and sacred healing, “Matrescence: Becoming Mother Nature” is a collection of artworks in an environmental context that explores the birth of a mother, the relationship between grief, healing, and nature, and a new outlook on climate resilience. The work seeks to highlight the parallels between becoming a parent and the sacrifices made by the earth in bearing and sustaining humanity. The artist investigates how to rediscover connection with nature even in the midst of human interferance, and searches for space and time for rest and reconnection with the body in order to heal the soul. The archetypal “inner child” emerges in this work to help find bridges between the past and present, grief and joy. Examples of work include text-based paintings which question the nature of trauma, grief, and identity; woven canopies, nests, and blankets made of reclaimed cardboard, plastic, and textiles (as well as natural materials such as grasses, leaves, and mud) which conceptually speak to a mother’s desire to protect, nurture – and rest. Installing the artwork in the artist’s own backyard highlights the vulnerability and temporality of life and the importance of reckoning with the environment that we live in, while deepening inquiry into the changes that materials face over time – both becoming more resilient, and being reclaimed by nature. “Matrescence: Becoming Mother Nature” aims to further conversations with parents, caregivers, and the larger community about climate resilience, transitions and major life changes, and intergenerational healing.

See full Project Proposal here.

*“Before,” backyard of residence, Kirkland WA, 2023.*

*Matrescence: Becoming Mother Nature — final project exhibition, 11.16.24*

Below is the evolution of the concepts and construction of “Matrescence: Becoming Mother Nature.” It encompasses sculpture, installation, string art, 2D paintings/drawings, recycled materials, environmental/land art, photography, the environment, rain, time, and community building.

Research questions:

How are the sacrifices of a parent/birth parent similar to the sacrifices of the Earth in bearing humanity?
What spaces does a (birth) parent have to simply rest and heal? When and how does the Earth get to rest and heal?
What does “trans-” mean to you? Transition, transformation, transfiguration, transgendered, transubstantiation — what do these things all have in common?
What is a major transformation that you have been through? How has it changed you? In what ways can you sit with that change, either metaphorically or physically, in space and time?
Is healing a spiritual experience? What is the role of pain and grief in healing, joy, and wholeness?