Hidden Mother / 2016, 37" x 27," archival pigment print
Responding to Linda Fregni Nagler's book Hidden Mother, I pose holding my daughter, yet with my hands visible. Her book documents a collection of 1000 (and growing) "hidden mother" portraits from the turn of the 19th century. Historically, small children were held by adults to account for long exposure times, due to the mechanical limits of the time. These people, usually mothers, were obstructed from view, rendered invisible. The visibility of a mother's working hands suggests all domestic modern labor that is poured into child rearing: in addition to actual work there is also the task of organizing and planning, what feminists term "the mental load."
Disarray / 2019, 37" x 27," archival pigment print