My personal favourite, a portrait formed of light and shadow depicting a mother walking with her chubby-legged child is framed by neon bands of magenta and cyan in this work by London, Ontario-based artist Jack Chambers (1931–1978).

The classic mother’s conundrum. In her early days, before she moved to Canada, Clark’s parenting and household duties left little time for painting, a frustrating reality. See more about Paraskeva Clark here.

From the American Art collection at the Smithsonian, a brilliant, timeless, mother-child shot (1973). As the museum notes: “While in many photos of mother and child it’s the young one who squirms, here the daughter is absolutely calm while the mother waves an arm in a blur.”

Picasso did many mother and child paintings, including this one: “Madre e hijo al borde del mar” (Mother and Child on the Seashore), 1921. See others here.

When Amy Sherald was chosen as the official portraitist for Michelle Obama in 2018, she was catapulted to superstardom from her burgeoning career. In this painting (two years earlier), the traditional Madonna and child has been reframed in modern context, with a young girl hoisted onto her mother’s denim-clad hip. 

Much has been written about this work, painted by one of the great modern portraitists, Alice Neel. This work shows Neel’s daughter-in-law Nancy, a new mother to her own daughter Olivia, Neel’s first grandchild. Neel was an advocate for women, and the heroics of early motherhood, which she knew herself, are evident in this painting. (See more about this painting and others by Neel did at Artforum here)

One of photography’s most famous mothers: “Migrant Mother,” by Dorothea Lange (1936). The iconic photograph of Florence Owens Thompson, a migrant mother struggling through the Great Depression, symbolizes a woman’s strength and determination in the face of hard times. 

On a Personal Note:

I have always loved this portrait of my maternal grandmother (Eileen) with son Robert, probably around 1921. She was an amazing mother and grandmother, as strong as they come and always full of laughter and joy.

Montreal-based Sayeh Sarfaraz pays homage to Iranian women persecuted by the Islamic regime in her latest exhibition, Femme at Galerie Jano Lapin. Sarfaraz unveils the bright side of her Persian cultural heritage to denounce the repressive system she herself had to flee.

Her work draws from the legacy of the Kachkai people, the largest nomadic people on the planet known for the art of weaving and the exceptional quality of Persian carpets since the 11th century.

A culture that was once radiant

“Sarfaraz reverses the erasure of feminine identity by injecting strength and light into these portraits, which take shape in the work by revealing the beauty of a culture that was once radiant,” the gallery says.

Femme – the exhibition title echoes Woman, Life, Freedom, the political slogan first used in 2006 and then echoed by the Iranian freedom movement following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022. 

Sayeh Sarfaraz was born in Shiraz, the cultural capital of Iran. A graduate of the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg (France), she has been living in Montreal since 2009. Her work has been widely exhibited, including in Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Toronto, Dubai and London.

Her website, here.

Her Instagram, here.

At Galerie Jano Lapin, here.

Image at top of post: via Galerie Jano Lapin here, photo by Michael Patten

Artist Heather Millar says her work reflects “vintage ambiance steeped in nostalgia,” a style it’s easy to see in her contemporary, pop art. You may already have seen her best known work — on the hit TV series Suits, hanging in the office of Harvey Specter, the legal drama’s headstrong lawyer.

If you want to see Harvey’s lighter side, look on his office walls, says Macht. “His artwork was chosen to show he has a whimsical side with a truly wicked sense of humor.” (The painting is a plot line on Suits, more at this link.)

Millar is a professional painter based in Prince Edward Island since 2008.  Formerly from Edmonton, Alberta, she completed her BFA at Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary.

Heather MIllar’s website, here.

On Instagram, here.

Her artist page at Canvas Gallery, which represents her, here.

Represented by Adele Campbell Fine Art, Whistler, B.C., here

Go here to Listen Closely (the duck painting) on Heather MIllar’s site.

These photo works came immediately to mind after news yesterday that President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau reached a deal to close a popular but unofficial Canadian border crossing used by 10s of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. (See news item here and here)

Photographer Thomas Kiefer’s decade as a part-time janitor at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Facility in Arizona led to these heart-wrenching shots. Disturbed by the volume of discarded food, clothing and belongings of migrants and smugglers – some after seizure by immigration and customs, the rest simply left behind – he began cataloging the items in this series of powerful still lifes.

Kiefer says that “for many of those years, I was allowed to collect and take the food transported by migrants, that was discarded during the first stages of processing, to our community food bank, an estimated sixty tons by the person who managed it.”

Kiefer says that “how we treat others is a reflection of who we are. When belts, shoelaces, toothbrushes, socks, shoes, underwear, pants, shirts, jackets, watches, bibles, wallets, coins, cell phones, keys, jewellery, calling-cards, water, food, soap, deodorant, gloves, medicine, birth control pills, blankets and rosaries are considered non-essential personal property and discarded, regardless of the amount and origin, something becomes less than human.”

“These belongings, necessary for hygiene, comfort and survival, were deemed “non-essential” or “potentially lethal.,” Kiefer says. “I ask the viewer to consider these photographs as untold and unknown stories, markers of human journeys cut short.”

See Tom Kiefer’s full series on his website, here.