The Creation of the World

The Creation of the World (2019). Neon and transformers, 65 x 65cm.

‘The Creation of the World’ is a wall-based neon artwork depicting a pregnant figure at the moment of crowning; the blue-gloved hands of the midwife ready to support the emerging baby. The composition and the artwork title make reference to Gustave Courbet's 'L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World) [1866] and Michelangelo's 'The Creation of Adam' [1512].

The patriarchal and western religious narratives surrounding the female body, motherhood and the creation of life that have dominated art history, continue to impact the cultural representations of pregnancy and motherhood today.  Having previously worked with neon to explore my own experience of maternal identity through language, I was  interested in utilising the unique properties of neon to explore representations of the birthing body, with a view of creating an empowering representation of birth which challenged these limiting representations. Neon is historically associated with the advertisement of the female nude as sex object. By using the medium to illustrate images of birth, the work aims to provoke a dialogue around the reasons why we are so comfortable with the sexualised body but so shocked at the birthing body. Drawing upon conceptual themes within the “Madonna/Whore” dichotomy and the depictions of the female body as either “sexual” or  “maternal”, it aims to blur the boundaries between these two tropes and create a message of empowerment, strength and multifaceted maternal power.

Produced during a residency at Birth Rites Collection with funding from Creative Scotland, The Hope Scott Trust and King’s College Cultural Institute.