On this mothers day in Wales we show this beautiful self-portrait of mother with child by Ella Starling..
Ella’s exhibition ‘Raising Her Voice: A Collective Portrait of Motherhood’ opens today at Oriel y Parc in St Davids and will run for two weeks 15 – 30 March, and it will be on show again at Span Arts in Narberth for a week from 15 – 22 April.
We know Ella from her intricate botanical paintings and from her generous life drawing teaching in St Davids
But Ella’s talent and career as a painter is now being discovered through her important and moving representations of what goes unsaid for many mothers in the time during creating new lives and afterwards when nurturing these new lives. These times can be traumatic and desolate for many mothers and Ella’s powerful oil paintings and charcoal drawings relay these journeys to the viewer and the strength it takes to navigate them. Ella’s work illuminates the need for more community support to mothers to help them find the strength that they need creating new lives.
This period of work and exhibition by Ella has been supported by the Arts Council Wales and National Lottery.
Raising Her Voice: A Collective Portrait of Motherhood
‘Through portraiture, I seek to explore what words often fall short of expressing’
The intention of this work was to create honest, personal representations of motherhood
that challenge the often oversimplified versions and limiting narratives we see in visual
culture.
At the heart of the project are the in-depth interviews I had with three mothers from across
Pembrokeshire, alongside Mothers’ Circles and my own lived experience.
These interviews revealed how frequently women move through this crucial time without
space to process what they’re experiencing because the priority is always the child. But the
scars and the emotions are still there, unprocessed, unreleased. These portraits are a way of
making visible what is often pushed down or left unspoken.
If maternal wellbeing support is not embedded within our communities, we risk continuing
to see mothers struggle in silence and ever more frightening statistics about maternal
mental health. This project advocates for space, honesty and collective care.