Caroline Walker: Mothering at The Hepworth Wakefield

There’s no doubt that The Hepworth Wakefield has one of the most exciting exhibition programmes in the country – this season continues on a high with Caroline Walker’s light-filled depictions of women in Mothering.

Walker is best known for her cinematic paintings of women and women’s experience. She pays close attention to the work of daily life, from breastfeeding to folding laundry, and the spaces that women inhabit, both in professional and personal settings. Her observations are recorded in broad brush strokes, switching between small canvases and large-scale works that feel like portals to step into. 

Mothering is the artist’s largest museum show to date and features paintings made over the last five years as well as brand new works. 

One rare self-portrait features Walker holding her six-week old son and his tiny hand will undoubtedly put a tear in the eye of any mother who looks back on the newborn days with fondness. The fleeting nature of this experience was indeed one of the driving forces for creating works about motherhood, but while the artist does sometimes capture her own experiences, the paintings often feature other women caring for children, in nurseries, hospitals and in the home. She explains being particularly interested in the complicated dynamics associated with childcare as a profession and the different ways in which we value labour.

There are focused sonographers carrying out pregnancy ultrasounds and still lives with breast pumps. Elsewhere, you’ll find a scene from a swimming lesson, the water glowing as if the image was displayed on a lightbox.

This is, in fact, a constant in Walker’s painting – colour is as important as the subjects themselves, with a consistent warmth that cuts through even the most clinical settings. There are honey-coloured rooms in the evening light and vibrant scenes of nurseries, made even brighter by the gallery’s collaboration with a paint company that created specific wall colours to complement the works on display.

Mothering is a very special show, one that makes visible the parts of so many women’s lives that most of us take for granted.