27 Weeks No. 3 Print

ON MOTHERHOOD I was a new mother when I started making wallpaper décollages. Prior to that, I was using torn posters found on the streets. I translated those materials into elements of interior design; the wallpaper rolls replaced the posters. I was drawn to those printed papers that cover walls with attractive patterns. I immediately associated the definition of "pattern" to the daily routine of a mother's life. I ripped off the paper in a kind of an emotional outburst. Sometimes the cuts were the consequence of an energetic almost violent gesture, others they were the result of a delicate, even meditative execution. While peeling off the layers of paper, abstract shapes suggesting the female body started to appear; forms and movements on paper with floral and damask motifs that to me, speak about pregnancy, birth and motherhood. The beautiful and colourful blossoming of life mixed with the physical and psychological tearing that occurs through its different stages. Becoming a mother is a complex experience full of contradictions. "A secret reality — the glory and horror of the birth experience itself, the joy and pain of pregnancy, the sense of entrapment that goes along with the satisfactions of giving life". (Judy Chicago, Birth Project, 1985)