FOSTERING

作品賞析

In Nurturing, the artist Yang Yi-Shiang expresses her uneasiness and anxiety as a first-time mother. The house and the tree symbolize eternal shelter, and the factory girl on the antique TV screen is the artist’s self-projection. The scene of a woman working non-stop at a sewing machine implies “a mother’s unremitting efforts to ensure a smooth life for her children.” The several geometric figures extending out from the screen were sewn directly onto the canvas by the artist with needle and thread. The eyes of the two children on the left are obscured by rough, violent lines that represent the mother’s fears over all the “uncertainties around how her children will grow up.” The dark, subtle tonal changes and streakiness in the paint fill the painting with an eerie atmosphere. This painting expresses the complex emotions that women feel after childbirth transforms their lives. With the joy that children can bring also comes a lot of anxiety about their safety and their future.