Self-Portrait Series "The Mother's return to self"

This series began with the playfulness of matching lipstick and nail polish. It turned out that I have a blindingly bright red orange color of both, so I put it on and the transformation was immediate. The name of the lipstick is "Femme Fatale". I decided to play with that layer and mix it with the base persona of "mother".

Well, for me the two don't mix very well. The femme fatale gets up late and parties all night. The mother goes to bed early and gets up early to take care of her children. Or so it supposedly is (it does not always work out that way). But a femme fatale can turn into a mother and vice versa. And that's where we get something interesting.

So in these portraits we get a bit of the vulnerability and a bit of the coquettishness and a touch of the wisdom behind aging. We get measured liberation, rejection of being defined by the every day objects of mothering (notice the bath toy and the toilet seat) and determination to not be pigeonholed. 

Ava noticed me setting up to take the pictures and in her stompy gait quickly arrived to bombard me with a million "Wha doing mami? Mami, mami, what doing mami?" I explained that I am setting up to take some self-portraits. She quickly grabbed the camera remote and started taking the pictures for me. It was nice. It was really easy to all of a sudden be able to pose freely. My little one did not stop taking the pictures until I indicated that we are done. It was a seamless collaboration, without that many words. And then this beautiful realization crept through the vine of my thoughts- even young children can feel the subtle shifts of mood that create unspoken communication during the creative process.

So bellow are some photos from the shoot that I edited in order to heighten the ideas behind them. I hope that they speak to you. I hope they help you undertake your own questioning of what's beneath the surface of a mother's persona. This type of question deeply motivates me- what is beneath, what is beneath, what is beneath the surface that we see. I can hardly ever look at something without questioning it especially if that something is widely accepted as a norm.

There are two other important aspects to mention- the use of hands to frame the face (inspired by the one and only Auguste Rodin, whose reproductions I grew up with and by Madonna's "Vogue" choreography), and the color processing I applied in order to create a slight surrealist feeling when it comes to perceiving skin (inspired by one of my most favorite artists who I revere beyond description- Louise Bourgeois).

And here is a quote by her:

"Sometimes it is necessary to make confrontation - and I like that." Louise Bourgeois