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Alexandra Carter: The Mother Shell from Alexandra Carter
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ARTIST STATEMENT
I paint the female body in states of transformation—pregnancy, birth, postpartum—to reveal the visceral realities of motherhood. I want to know how this experience consumes, ruptures, and remakes the self. I’m drawn to the monstrous feminine—the reproductive body as both feared and revered, vola
I paint the female body in states of transformation—pregnancy, birth, postpartum—to reveal the visceral realities of motherhood. I want to know how this experience consumes, ruptures, and remakes the self. I’m drawn to the monstrous feminine—the reproductive body as both feared and revered, vola
Growing up on a cranberry farm in Massachusetts, I was immersed in cycles of fertilization, growth, and harvest—rhythms that shape my work. Cranberries become metaphors for the reproductive body: swollen, fertile, bleeding. The harvest’s dependence on flooding echoes my fascination with contain
I often use my own body as a model, staging performances for the camera to explore personal and archetypal imagery. I draw from folklore and mythology, reimagining figures whose transformations mirror the physical and psychological shifts of motherhood. These mythic bodies—splitting, mutating—s
Through these paintings, I confront the contradictions of motherhood—its tenderness and violence, power and erasure, creation and consumption—an experience that is both universal and deeply personal.... more
- Alexandra Carter
- Protect This Birth, 2023
- Ink and gold leaf on drafting film
- 32.5 x 42 in
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$2,600
This piece mixes the protective elements of ancient representations of Medusa the Gorgon with the body language of a maternity photo shoot. The “Gorgoneion” is an apotropaic amulet or shield depicting the Gorgon’s face. Athena is often depicted adorned with the Gorgoneion for protection. Here, the Gorgoneion decorates a large pregnant belly, protecting its interior life, something I feel compelled to do in reflection of my own pregnancy after such a struggle with infertility.