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Alexandra Carter: The Mother Shell from Alexandra Carter

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

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

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Alexandra Carter
Venus of Hohle Fels, 2025
Ink, image transfers and grommets on two sheets of drafting film
34 x 21 in
$2,400

Paleolithic fertility figures inspire me with their exaggerated curves and their astonishing persistence across time and geography. In this piece, I augment those curves with image transfers of berries from my family’s cranberry farm—playing with layered notions of fertility: of the body, the earth, and my own roots.

This work draws inspiration from the Venus of Hohle Fels, a small figurine carved from mammoth ivory around 40,000 years ago and discovered in 2008 in Germany. It’s considered one of the oldest known representations of the human form—and possibly the earliest known depiction of a female figure in prehistoric art. The figurine suggests early symbolic thinking, artistic expression, and perhaps spiritual or ritual practices centered on fertility.

I used two layered sheets of drafting film to evoke a sense of depth and transparency in the mark-making—subtleties much more apparent in person than in digital representation. Grommets pierce the figure’s nipples, emphasizing their significance while also physically binding the sheets together and creating points for hanging. I cut the figure out to reinforce her object-ness. I love how she floats on the wall this way.