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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
Viability, 2023
Ink on drafting film
66 x 42 in
$5,000

This work was inspired by geologic formations while referencing images of myself and my daughter. The mother-and-child motif is emerging from, or perhaps being swallowed up by, these wave-like shapes, like a force coming from the outer world and impressing itself on the body. It meditates on a sense of loss and perseverance, while speaking to the pressures we place on the maternal body, in a similar way to those placed on mother earth. The title “Viability” insinuates the beginning stages of pregnancy, when an embryo’s viability dictates whether it continues to grow. It can also be interpreted in a broader sense: whether something is capable of surviving or living successfully, especially under particular environmental conditions.