Sarah Detweiler is a Philadelphia area-based, mixed-media painter. In her last series Hidden Mother, she made a “personal commentary about the evolution of women’s roles in our society and how those roles and expectations shift when a woman becomes a mother”, as she explains in her statement. “It is a response to the Victorian photography trend by the same title where mothers draped themselves in the fabric to remain concealed while holding their children still for the long exposure photography. Their attempts to camouflage themselves gave the mothers an eerie, almost ghost-like presence”, a reference that we can see as we watch her pieces.

More generally, this mixed media series explores her fascination with the “bizarre trend” and the responses that it evoked through her identity as a mother. “It is by concealing the figure, that I am asking the viewer to reflect on that which defines the role of a mother”, she precises.

More to see on her website or her Instagram account.