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during my lecture on cave arts a
wonderful piece of sculpture flashed
across the screen and our lecturer said
and we all know what Paleolithic men
were thinking about when they made this
and that was all that this wonderful
piece of sculpture was gonna get and I
had a problem with that when I actually
went out to look at these figures which
are between twenty and thirty thousand
years old I realized that they
represented women in all stages of their
lives there are some sim young sexy ones
and some who had done all their
childbearing and
a bit overweight they didn't seem to me
to offer the posture or gaze of the
classic kind of Venus if you think of
the beautiful sculpture of Venus rising
from her bath she directly connects with
him and in attempting to cover herself
actually accentuates her breasts
Pretender
that's an erotica piece these ladies
have a downward gaze they're not trying
to give you the come on their arms are
tucked in often on that swollen bellies
their knees are always clenched tight
together
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becoming pregnant for the first time
really changed things for me there was a
question for me always of what do you
paint how do you paint it and in a sense
being pregnant too the first time
answered that question my parents were
going to be grandparents I wasn't meant
to be young forever and in a way was
becoming part of the cycle of life so as
my body was changing and becoming
something else and almost becoming a
container before for somebody else I
started to make drawings really as a way
perhaps of making sense and coming to
terms with that I I think there is a
particular kinship between women around
the whole business of being pregnant and
delivering babies and motherhood that
that links us and I think that is one of
the reasons why certain women when I
worked in the maternity unit were very
happy to allow me to go through with
them and right through to the Delivery
Unit and beyond there was a sense of the
importance perhaps of what they were
living through a sense of that this is
universal subject matter
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fact that many of them are shown
pregnant and even giving birth is also
interesting and that might lead us to
suspect that these figures are something
to do with perhaps women's rights
passage perhaps to associate it with
particular beliefs relating to the fears
and joys of childbearing I had a very
strong sense looking at the little
sculptures that they had been made by
women I mean we'll never know
but they had a sense of containment and
a sense of inferiority about them a
sense of not really recording the
experience so much is being embodiments
of the experience
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