Routes into intimacy in images of the maternal.

This essay aims to validate the power of emotive responses within the dimensions of motherhood depictions. Intimacy, when connection and emotion is the sole Mother of this reactive state; [December 9th 1914] “You lie outstretched: [...] “Here I am.” Your eyes - perhaps - open wide, so that you see the blue sky above you, and the clouds and birds. Your mouth smiling” (Kollwitz, 1995, p.63). To hold onto, to grasp onto, to let go of; the three bodies of work which will be discussed in this essay, deal with the maternal. They are characterised by the different ways they tackle forms of intimacy. By establishing various outcomes as a result of the charged relationships, they disconcert us by the directness of their vision, they show “something on the inside depicted on the outside, something that is often suppressed” (Whiltshire, 2019, m.s 26:28). How complex and often ambivalent representations and reflections of the maternal can be, despite the conventions of the popular idea of the mother. Kathe Kollwitz, Susan Hiller and Hermione Whiltshire have all explored the subject of motherhood. Each tackles different kinds of portrayal in sentimentality within the maternal, that of empathy of loss, dread and pleasure, as well as the bodily and the objective. All three invite you, draw you in by portraying different states of that particular female experience.