Across time, culture and class, the idea of the Mother has achieved the status of myth, yet it embodies countless contradictions. This most intimate relationship is ultimately unknowable. To consider one’s maternal lineage and to depict familial roles and relationships is like documenting a hall of mirrors, reflections and distortions abound — ultimately the images reflect back upon oneself.

In their exhibition, Our Mothers Ourselves, currently on view at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, photographers Ellen Konar and Adrienne Defendi have selected ten additional artists to join them in expressing the intricacies and legacy of their matrilineal experiences. Articulated with compassion, complex emotional bonds are revealed through a wide variety of processes and practices. The exhibition conjures small worlds constructed from multiple layers in time.

— Lindsay Lochman

View the Lenscratch article.

Photograph: New Beginning. © 2020 Jerry Takigawa