The twelve miniature works come together to create an emotional calendar of motherhood, in which each image can be symbolically associated with a month in the child’s first year of life and, simultaneously, with a stage in the woman’s first year as a mother.
The series does not follow a strict chronology. Instead, it reconstructs motherhood through fragments: objects, symbols, gestures, states of mind and small everyday revelations. Sleep, feeding, waiting, crying, touch, fear and joy become units of measurement for a chronology perceived only by the mother, who is adapting to a new state of identity.
The twelve miniature works can also be read as entries in a visual diary. By remaining faithful to a reduced format, Elleny attempts to reproduce the rhythm and cadence of external, objective time, while each image bears witness to a subjective time — to deeply intimate and unrepeatable experiences — marking the mother’s “firsts”: the first sleepless night, the first painting made together, the first fear of a possible danger, and so on.
Each image corresponds to a new state of the mother: vulnerable, exhausted, protective, dreamy, anxious, tender, sometimes overwhelmed, and at other times surprised by her own capacity to adapt.
Curatorial note — Ioana Ciocoiu
