MOTHERHOOD IS CONTEMPORARY is an interwoven exhibition of three women artists – Jeni Johnson, Aurora Barrett and Jessica Brox – whose works express an intricate feminine narrative through the mediums of clay, textile, and paint.
Drawing from scholarship of ancestral wisdom and ancient religion, mythology and lived female experiences, they evoke the Great Mother archetype, the triad of Maiden, Mother, Crone, and the realms of Heaven, Earth, and Underworld. Through their unique practices, the artists explore the feminine narrative as both an individual and universal journey, embodying creation, transformation, and renewal.
Clay, stone, ceramic,
This is our mother, the earth, our origin
Giver of life and all gifts
What we are made of
Our home
Jeni Johnson’s tactile works bring forth the grounding energy of earth and stone, reimagining ancient landscapes and symbols. Stone Circle (Tree), a response to The Nine Ladies stone circles in Derbyshire, is made of slabs of earthenware clay rolled organically to form variable shapes. Johnson has embedded these forms using inlay and sgraffito techniques inspired by the imagery found in cave paintings in Southern Spain with further influence from the Japanese Kintsugi technique, which celebrates fractures and impurities.
Themes of death, re-birth and renewal echo through her work, with the use of foraged pigments and hand formed clay infusing a direct relationship with Mother Earth. A recurring hourglass figure reflects Johnson’s exploration of goddess-centred symbols, invoking prehistoric rituals of feminine divinity. This female form embodies both the life-giver and the death-bearer, symbolised by vulture claws.
Into the Darkness, arranged like the entrance to a tomb or cave, suggests a journey into the unseen. Her stone-like forms, inspired by the placement of cave paintings in remote locations, invite viewers to consider their role not merely as images but as portals, communicating across the centuries.
“It’s very much about accepting. Letting something just be as it is and not having too many expectations.” – Jeni Johnson
Thread, fabric, textile
What we make for ourselves, each other
Our fruitage
We give back to our Earth
Our humanity
In Aurora Barrett’s textile works hand-dyed antique fabrics provide a canvas for delicate lines and intricate stitches, where subtle and absolute forms evoke the feminine journey. In her She’s So Slow Triptych, Barrett embroiders three self-portraits on antique linen, each figure celebrating the richness of a slower pace. Embodying a seasonal rhythm, The Harvester celebrates the renewal of life in autumn, amidst yellowing leaves and dying fruit; ‘She is fall, she is the cold wind and brazen sun, gathering and sowing, the harvester.’ The piece is hand-embroidered on a naturally dyed 19th-century French smock.
In her final piece, Legs Open to the Sea, Aurora encompasses her experience of pregnancy whilst reinterpreting Gustave Flauberts, ‘L’origin du Monde’. Her birth canal becomes a doorway to the centre of her universe.
“I wanted to challenge our social views on pregnant women with this piece, and bring light to how empowering, desirable and sexy these months in a woman’s lifetime can be.” – Aurora Barrett
These works stitch together memory and presence, where each thread becomes an emblem of patience, nurturance, and introspection.
Painting, drawing, image making
These are stories, dreams, memories
What is held in our psyche
We seek to understand
The unseen things
Jessica Brox’s works reveal a world where internal and external landscapes are intertwined, inviting viewers into a mythic space inhabited by a recurring female protagonist depicted through oil paintings, charcoal and pastel drawings.
Beginning with The Doorway, the protagonist’s observation of herself transforms a mirror into a threshold to the natural world beyond, a summoning to step outside, to become empathically part of everything.
Sapling symbolises the transformation of this inner work from the maiden to the mother goddess. Brox’s palette and motifs guide viewers on a journey toward emergence, transformation and connection with the world outside themselves.
Reciprocity is the culmination of the journey, the goddess is now fully grown, nourished and producing fruitage. The earth gives her gifts and she herself becomes a gift, in this giving of herself she dies and is reborn. The narrative arc weaving these works together follows the cycle of the natural world: birth, life, death and renewal.
“The paintings are an invitation to become the mother, no matter who you are. Mother earth has many lessons in empathy, kindness and love; we will emulate her powerful qualities if we connect to her.” – Jessica Brox
In Motherhood is Contemporary each artist approaches motherhood as both a physical and spiritual threshold, where the realms of the psyche, the body, and the earth meet. In this tapestry of life cycles, each work becomes a meditation on the timelessness of Mother Earth and what it means to nurture, transform, and be reborn, guided by the voices of the ancient divine feminine.
