For Israeli-American artist Elinor Carucci, the dynamic was the reverse, as she began her career when still a teenager by photographing her mother – a woman she describes as both “demanding and strict” and “loving and beautiful”. “When I started to take pictures of her, so many things happened. All those qualities that were difficult to deal with became kind of material for work,” she says. “It made me see so much more of her and got our relationship to deeper places.”
In 2013, now a parent of twins, she published Mother, the culmination of 10 years’ work, and a bid for a more authentic depiction of motherhood. She says: “You do have Madonna and child moments, but it’s maybe 0.8% of what it is to be a mother.” Instead, the collection captures the forced intimacy of a child joining her on the toilet or exploring her naked body; and the caesarean scar, linea nigra and engorged breasts of her post-partum body. Can we say that society’s depiction of motherhood is now truthful? “It’s getting there,” she replies.
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