High Heels, Plastic Tiaras and Muddy Puddles: Natasha Rowell

An ongoing exploration of the intersections and boundaries between the artist as mother, the domestic sphere, and evolving representations of childhood in the media, this exhibition also encapsulates waypoints of the artists’ personal journey as activist, as artist, and as mother.

Being on display in the historic cottage captures the ambience of the domestic sphere, Natasha’s work is about the relationship between mother and child–or in their more formal incarnation, between artist and muse. Specifically, it plays on the role of wallpaper as boundary marker of domestic space, and incorporates a visual commentary on her experiences trying to reconcile her identities as artist and mother, whilst also negotiating and trying to understand the representation of childhood in the digital age–by artists, by parents, and in commercial media–and how the grubby reality captured by the constant presence of digital photography contrasts with, for instance, the idealised and ultimately illusionary purity of the children portrayed by Victorian artists.