Two Women
V. Taylor
This piece is a reflection on two young women, one of whom had just suffered her third miscarriage and another who was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. Fertility is so central to how we think of ourselves as women that we almost define ourselves by our ability to have children and when that is taken away we are left devastated, hopeless, unfeminine, wilted and old before our time.
The experiences of those women played on my fears and on my mind. The pain of losing the children you’ve never had at a time when your contemporaries are wonderfully fecund, like a flower losing its petals in the middle of summer.
Whole Person Care – Year Four
The dark colour suit this theme, and I like the way the ‘wilted flower’ also signifies an ovary, and vice versa. the shading in the mid-ground looks like a spiral, bringing to mind depression and obsessive thoughts that may follow such a ‘failure’ to womankind. to me, the light blue in the background lends an air of hope to the painting, as childbirth is not all there is to a woman, though it’s currently obscured by misery overall, I really like this piece, it speaks to me on a very visceral level considering my own fears concerning historical trouble with conception in my maternal line.