This month we take a look at an intriguing artwork which is the result of one artist's exploration of research into mood disorders that women can experience before and after giving birth.
In the academic year 2014-2015, artist Ibby Lanfear undertook a residency in the University of Exeter’s Psychology Department. The residency, hosted by Heather O’Mahen, Professor of Perinatal and Clinical Psychology, explored Dr O’Mahen’s research on perinatal mood disorders, that is to say, mood disorders which women can experience before and after giving birth.
The residency culminated with an exhibition of Ibby's work in the Forum building on the University’s Streatham campus, inspired by her investigations into the subject.
This artwork, entitled ‘After the Ideal: piece by piece’ was the key artwork in the exhibition. It was created using ink, pencil and charcoal on paper, as well as collage and stitching.
The artist explains her thought process behind the work:
"An idea of 'mother' or 'family' is based on many things; childhood, stories, nursery rhymes, popular culture, experience. It is an innate and often unquestioned part of our own sense of ourselves. Perhaps a painful process for any parent is coming to accept that you are maybe not the parent you thought you would be, hoped you would be.
But a perinatal mental illness can tear a woman's perception of herself as a mother to pieces. The unconsciously harboured myth of the ideal is shattered. This is not how it was meant to be. She is, brutally, not who she thought she would be. Her baby does not have the mother she thought it would have. She not only has to cope with a serious and debilitating illness at a time of immense change in her own life, but is critically aware of the implications it could have for her child, her relationship and her family. She feels shame for how she thinks she will be perceived. There is a sense of failure. There is guilt, for the illness, for the medication, and grief for the precious time that has been irretrievably lost.
Yet many, many women find an often painful path back to their sense of themselves as a mother, a "good" mother, and mend themselves and their family, piece by piece, thread by thread. They are the same, but not the same. They are stronger and yet more fragile. Life is more precious, and perhaps, more beautiful."
About the Artist
Following a degree in Art History and English at York University, UK, Ibby trained as an easel paintings conservator at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Since graduating in 2004 she has worked as an artist, conservator and researcher into paintings and collections.
Experimenting with colour, she makes pigments from natural materials - ground earth, stone, plant material and even found bones.
She is particularly interested in the history of making, and in the human relationship with materials and the natural world in the creation of art and telling of stories. She holds an MA in Arts and Ecology, and her work focusses on the interwoven narratives of the human and more-than-human through time.
She says of her practice:
“Deeply rooted in the specific materiality of place, in my wider practice I predominantly use a combination of drawing, writing and colour-making as intimate means of understanding the land and life around me.
Borrowing Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘sympoiesis’ or a ‘making with,’ through the use of natural foraged materials the work becomes collaborative and relational. Often exploring themes of species loss and interdependence, it seeks to return agency to the more-than-human and convey an equality of individual lived experience between species. Making and writing become visceral arts of recognition and remembrance; acts of care, and quiet resistance within the ‘violent unmaking’ of life in the Anthropocene.”
Ibby is an elected member of the Society of Graphic Fine Art and serves on the council. She has exhibited throughout the UK and her work is held in public and private collections. Recent and forthcoming publications include Wild Roof Journal, Dark Mountain and the Center for Humans and Nature. She lives in Devon.
Find out more about Ibby Lanfear and her recent work on her website: https://www.ibbylanfear.com/
University of Exeter
Room 153, Queen's Building
The Queen's Drive
Exeter EX4 4QH
