Born I 2007

Curator: Before us hangs "Born I," a 2007 painting by Carmen Delaco. Editor: Immediately, there's a rawness that strikes me. The frantic brushstrokes, the near-monochrome palette punctuated by those alarming reds…it's visually unsettling. Curator: Delaco’s piece clearly participates in a wider societal discourse surrounding maternity – particularly poignant when viewed in the context of early 21st-century debates around women’s roles, pressures of motherhood, and expectations of maternal identity. The artist engages with this complex matrix by portraying something viscerally human rather than idyllic. Editor: I see how that tension manifests in the handling of form. Look how the figures nearly dissolve into the background, almost overwhelmed by the swaths of blacks and grays. The faces are obscured, reduced to blotches of pigment. It defies traditional portraiture completely. Curator: Exactly! And think of abstract expressionism as an art movement born from a world war that tried to represent that very dissolution, that feeling of overwhelm, of not recognizing one's place or identity in the world. The work almost confronts viewers with this deconstructed idea of what a mother should look like. Editor: It reminds me of early Lucien Freud, but stripped even further bare. The vulnerability is palpable, but so is a certain resistance – the deliberate obfuscation hints at a private emotional landscape that remains stubbornly inaccessible. The very title implies a sense of emergence. Curator: Indeed, I see how Delaco subtly inverts conventional representations and actively negotiates a fresh, contemporary approach. The role of galleries and collectors, even today, plays a huge role in giving expressionist work this honest, somewhat disorienting reading of the family—and motherhood specifically—greater cultural significance. Editor: Well, either way, that visceral handling of the paint makes a forceful emotional claim all on its own. It stays with you. Curator: It gives us plenty to ponder. Editor: Definitely, this painting is anything but sentimental.