MOTHER
Dates: July 24 2026 - September 18 2026
Location: 120 Olympia Ave NE, Olympia, WA, 98501
ARTISTS
Alcamy Henriksen, A'misa Chiu, Anna Okrasinski Maddox, Ellen Tommila, Fern Tallos, Holly Stevens, Julia Reed, Kelly Watson, Kelsey Smith, Kirsten Miller, Lizzie Mithrandir, Maria Nemorosa Mariella Luz, Mikaela Shafer, Phoebe Wahl, Shelly Seder, Vida Hannon, Yvonne Kunz
Curated by Fern Tallos
About the show
The Mother exhibition explores motherhood as the central theme and lived identity of the contributing artists.
As mothers we live under the pressure and expectation that our identities will cease to exist outside of the parameters of what society dictates of us: that we will morph into the shape of what our families need at any cost; that we will contort our bodies until they concede the necessary and sometimes devastating personal sacrifices asked of us to maintain normalcy.
As artists, our work persists; the poetry of biological reproduction opens portals into new dimensions of expression. In the constant unearthing of ourselves amid our responsibilities as caregivers, and in embracing motherhood as a generative source of transformation, we are granted a window into the world mothers hold inside of their lived experiences.
In Mother we celebrate the work of mothers; creative work historically minimized to “women’s work”, too often under-represented in traditional fine art spaces. We honor a visual diary of the raw materials that surround motherhood: preparing, becoming, enduring, and changing within. The pieces in this exhibition represent a diverse spectrum of mediums that embody experiences of joy, loss, transformation, pain, and expansion. In this collection we exuberantly demonstrate the enduring creative richness of mothers.
