MATERNAL FANTASIES is an evolving and interdisciplinary group of international artists and cultural producers based in Berlin, Germany. We (re)connected in 2018 to share experiences and insights into the most marginalised topic within both the art world and feminist discourse: Motherhood.
We join forces to embrace, discuss, elaborate and express contrasting experiences and family stories, memories, fantasies, desires and horror scenarios related to ‘Maternal Fantasies’.
Currently we meet every three-weeks to examine through artistic research, collaborative artworks and lived experience the dynamics between artistic creation and motherhood seeking to shape the discourse of motherhood through our artistic working process.
We are an organic group that produces works in different constellations between the individual group members.
Current group members are: Aino El Solh, Hanne Klaas, Isabell Spengler, Lena Chen, Magdalena Kallenberger, Maicyra Leão, Melanie Schlachter, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Olga Sonja Thorarensen, Sandra Moskova.
M1, Arthur Boskamp Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt, April 2019 The photo-text installation "Like so many..." was exhibited at "Colleagues Wanted I - Superheroines and visionary associates for everyday challenges", at alpha nova galerie Berlin in September 2018.
upcoming: Soloexhibition, M1 Arthur Boskamp Foundation, Hohenlockstedt, March 2020 catalogue, Maternal Fantasies, to be published March 2020
For Domestic Territories, Washington DC area artists were invited to consider how they negotiate the use of household space with their children. The work in the show investigates physical and emotional spaces that are separate, shared or disputed. By representing the constant evolution of personal boundaries in specific parent/child relationships, the exhibit highlights topics that are publicly debated but only privately encountered. The exhibit makes use of the gallery walls, windows, ceiling, and bathroom. Artists explore the language their children use to claim space, lack of boundaries in the home, domestic aesthetics and how the artists themselves influence their children.
Milana Braslavsky’s photographs consider the aesthetic of a home shared with children by visually connecting the pattern and texture of children’s toys to the form of nesting cookware. Nikki Brugnoli covers windows in the gallery with imagery and text related to her current home in which her workspace has no door, and her bedroom, a redesigned office space, has a glass door. By blocking view from the outside world, the work creates privacy in the gallery, which Brugnoli aims to maintain in her home. Edgar Endress responds to his son’s use of toys as a way to claim territory, but instead of claiming a space for himself as an individual by blocking others from areas of the gallery, he rethinks his son’s impulse by placing toys on the ceiling. Billy Frieble hijacked electronic children’s toys and reprogrammed them to mimic the movements of his infant son in an interactive sculpture that responds to the movement and body heat of gallery visitors. The artist’s observations of a developing child are translated into a piece that allows the viewer to consider growth, development and the presence of electronics in the early stages of life.
Roxana Alger Geffen’s installation piece incorporates a window in the gallery and uses a combination of traditional mediums and household materials to consider how children invade mental space. Erin Raedeke’s still life paintings are constructed scenes using a combination of products and brands that represent both adult life as well as childhood. The paintings represent mark-making associated with childhood, crayon marks, alongside the mark making of adults, cursive handwriting, representing a blend of life’s stages in one visual space. Megan Wynne’s photograph, Home Birth, captures a moment familiar to most living with toddlers. The scale and detail of the photograph confronts the viewer with an intimate setting in the public space of the gallery, foregrounding the blurring distinctions of self and other that take place when raising children. Fabiola Alvarez Yursicin’s piece uses glow in the dark material as a way to consider how children absorb, alter and then reflect a version of the attitudes and habits of their parents.
WOMB PROJECT STATEMENT: This 9 month long documentation explores the physical changes artist, Madison Omahne experienced throughout her first pregnancy. By crocheting around herself during this period, she creates a "womb-like" soft sculpture, which protects and comforts her, just as her womb protects and comforts her growing baby. Omahne utilizes the repetitive process of crocheting, a traditional craft, to reflect on her pregnancy, her body, and her baby growing inside. As her baby continues to grow and begins to manipulate her body, it is apparent that the sculpture is doing the same. The more the baby grows, the more difficult it becomes for the artist to continue creating her work. However, it is inevitable that she continues. This is catharsis. At last, when the sculpture is complete it is then deconstructed by the artist to reveal the greatest work of art, her baby.
BIO
Madison Omahne received her MFA in Sculpture at Brooklyn College in 2011, where she studied under renowned artists such as Vito Acconci and Patricia Cronin. She currently lives and works in her home studio with her husband, son, and two dogs in Cleveland, OH.
I am interested in the unwanted and dismissed. Objects are both stumbled upon and purposefully chosen. Thoughts, memories and past experiences are scavenged through in an effort to find meaning and uncover connections. My paintings document this search. The set-up allows me to object to preconceived ideas and assumptions; challenge an image or impression that is forced upon an object or relationship.
Everything has meaning. Seemingly random objects we encounter, no matter how unceremoniously, hold a flood of associations and truths buried in the sub conscience. The only way to tease them out is through sensitive observation and suspension of prejudice.
I, I am, I am here. Now I am here. Where are you? I make work where I am. I have allowed for questions. I look for the simplest solution. I have allowed for contradiction. I have allowed for open-endedness. I want my work to clearly communicate. I allow my hand to show to disrupt any illusion. I use language, text, and my voice as pliable forms. I build bridges of communication through various forms. I let the form of the work reflect the actions of its making. I arrange ordinary materials for people to rethink perception. I organize things through value, size or other default methods. I establish a framework to stay focused and reach an end point. I use the materials that are at hand to capture fugitive moments. I look for underlying patterns within existing structures and systems. I measure, demarcate, and play with existing structures and systems. I use repetition and the mirror image as a way to multiply visual potency. I use repetition and the mirror image as a way to multiply visual potency. I construct situations and spaces for people to interact and share a moment. I rearrange ordinary objects for people to see their surroundings in new light. I recognize what is already there allowing it to bring deeper implication to my work. I make, repeat, and persevere allowing meaning to emerge through the act of doing. I allow the path I take to show in the work so that others can enter and exit as I have. When I arrive at the end there is always surprise.