Motherhood changes you.

Not always in obvious ways. Sometimes it happens slowly — in the quiet moments, the routines, the things you give up, the things you discover, and the parts of yourself you begin to see differently.

MOTHER: The Women We Become is an intimate collection exploring that transformation.

Through still life, colour, food, objects and familiar scenes from everyday life, the exhibition looks at the many layers of motherhood — identity, love, exhaustion, creativity, family, belonging and the strange, beautiful process of becoming someone new.

It is about the woman we were before motherhood, the woman we are now, and all the versions of ourselves that exist somewhere in between.

Because when we become mothers, we don’t leave our old selves behind.

We carry pieces of who we were with us. We carry our own mothers, grandmothers and sisters. We carry family traditions, recipes, rituals and stories. We carry the things we were taught about being women — some that we treasure, some that we question, and some that we choose to change.

And we don’t become mothers alone.

There is a village woven through these works. The people who gather around the table. The friends who listen. The family who show up. The children who change everything. The women who remind us that we’re not the only ones figuring it out as we go.

There is grief and exhaustion in motherhood. There are moments of losing yourself, of wondering who you are now, and of missing the person you used to be.

But there is also so much joy.

In a shared meal. A messy kitchen. A child’s hand in yours. A familiar recipe. A table surrounded by people you love. The quiet moments that don’t seem important until you realise they are the moments you’ll remember.

MOTHER is a celebration of becoming.

Of the women we are, the women who came before us, and the women we are raising, nurturing and becoming alongside.

An invitation to pause, look around and find beauty in the ordinary.

And perhaps to realise that we haven’t lost ourselves at all.

Perhaps we’ve simply become more of ourselves.

Rebecca Pesa | Renee Brightman