NinaJohnson

Madeline Donahue (born Houston, TX 1983) makes figurative paintings, drawings and ceramics that center on her experiences of pregnancy, birth, motherhood, and owning a postpartum body. Her work is part of the recent explosion of dialog in the contemporary artworld about once taboo subjects: motherhood, intimacy, and caregiving.

Typical depictions of women in art fit into simplified archetypes centered around sexual viability that ends at childbirth- the maiden, the mother and then the crone. Her narrative work carves out thoughtful insight into our shared experiences from the female perspective, particularly life lived after becoming a mother. These experiences are often universal but hidden in daily life and unexplored in contemporary art. The surreal reality, physicality, emotionality and interdependence of these experiences are the focus of her work. Intimacy is at the core of all of her work, addressing the simultaneous existence of abject and sublime facets implicit in the relationship with her children and body.

Donahue makes work in real time as primary caregiver to her own children: working through isolation, fatigue, failure, anxiety, and joys of parenting. While crafting a super efficient studio practice, an avatar or characterization of herself emerged. This repetition of self provides basic structure that inspires a multitude of ideas and inspiration for new works.

The work is often humorous. She composes images the way a comedian crafts a joke. An idea is sketched through a series of drawings. Then any unnecessary elements are cut until the work is easily and e!ciently interpreted. Multifaceted symbols sometimes coded to the experiences of motherhood and caregiving appear in the work and are understood in a variety of ways depending on the viewer. Pendulous breasts flap, bellies swell, skin sags and flows, hands grab and pinch. She anchors many of her works in art historical references that sometimes include “bathers”- a nude figure moving through water, a counter reference to voyeuristic and motionless Modernist portrayals of women. She also references gymnastics, sports, and the “circus” of caregiving through titles, in the postures of figures and other visual representations. Each work is made e!ciently in a fresh and fluid process that communicates and captures the immediacy of a present moment to create art.

Donahue’s most recent work explores desire through the lens of motherhood, midlife and her studio practice. Desirous and powerful women, especially older women, are often censored and depicted as monstrous, grotesque and something to be feared. Desire emerges in the new work as a hyper-sexed character, a sort of twin to the familiar maternal character in her work. The twin is present at all times as the mother goes about her day. Desire is only seen by the viewer and the mother, allowing the mother to be herself with her children while acknowledging the often suppressed and ignored aspect of self so readily present and available for men in our culture. The goal of the work is to continue to push boundaries around perceptions of the body, intimacy, our connectedness to ourselves and each other.