Emma Hartvig

Mother as a Muse

Between 2018 and 2021 I almost exclusively took photographs of mothers, exploring the idea of the mother as a muse for the artist.

I started to recognize that I was trying to change the way we look at motherhood in connection to female identity. This experience was autobiographical; my own children woke me up with explosive force. Their birth put me in touch with all kinds of self-doubts; but they also made me ecstatic. I was connected to something larger than myself. Like falling in love, like ideological conversation; this connection made me feel my existence. Yet, there was a major grief, and an overwhelming sense of loss. Paralyzed by the realization that there is an exhaustion, a damage to the sensual self and a great need to make it possible to function lucidly and passionately.

These photographs were created instinctively over three years, with more than twenty women in three different countries. On one hand the project became a reflection of what I felt about the divided self in motherhood – and how the new mothers I met and photographed experienced a time of raw, unfiltered feelings of getting to know their body in change, as well as the new woman they had become. They were suddenly on display in a society that limits women from complete self-expression. Sensuality is a part of a mother’s tenderness to her child, yet she is expected to shield her body, her breasts whilst feeding, internalize her anger and sadness and provide a complete selfless maternal love. Here, the mother is a muse; in all of her force, fatigue and beauty. 

Home (2020)

Rest (2020)

Swimming mothers (2021)

Lines (2020)

Close (2020)

Embrace (self portrait with Alice) 2022

Embrace (self portrait with Alice) 2019

Sea, Soft (2020)

Martha (2020)

Xenia (2020)

Sleeping (2019)

Xenia Breastfeeding (2019)

Hold (2021)

Three mothers (2020)

A maternal body (2019)

Dominika (2021)

Elisabeth (2019

Between 2018 and 2021 I almost exclusively took photographs of mothers, exploring the idea of the mother as a muse for the artist.

I started to recognize that I was trying to change the way we look at motherhood in connection to female identity. This experience was autobiographical; my own children woke me up with explosive force. Their birth put me in touch with all kinds of self-doubts; but they also made me ecstatic. I was connected to something larger than myself. Like falling in love, like ideological conversation; this connection made me feel my existence. Yet, there was a major grief, and an overwhelming sense of loss. Paralyzed by the realization that there is an exhaustion, a damage to the sensual self and a great need to make it possible to function lucidly and passionately.

These photographs were created instinctively over three years, with more than twenty women in three different countries. On one hand the project became a reflection of what I felt about the divided self in motherhood – and how the new mothers I met and photographed experienced a time of raw, unfiltered feelings of getting to know their body in change, as well as the new woman they had become. They were suddenly on display in a society that limits women from complete self-expression. Sensuality is a part of a mother’s tenderness to her child, yet she is expected to shield her body, her breasts whilst feeding, internalize her anger and sadness and provide a complete selfless maternal love. Here, the mother is a muse; in all of her force, fatigue and beauty. 

Using Format