Marina Velez — Strowis Motherhood and Mother: ing

Strowis Motherhood: Gender can be studied as a relationship, where men are defined in relation to women and vice versa. The value-system upon which such classification rests encompasses distinction between the person and the social status he or she occupies, role behaviour that is assigned to that status, role expectations, people who define those expectations and sanctions to enforce such expectations. This photograph belongs to a series that I shot in the same setting of a hostel in the Netherlands over several years. The series documents my daughter's life from becoming an adult, through her pregnancy, motherhood, and separation. These photographs are an attempt to explore the transformations a woman has to go through in life, reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir’s words, ‘one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one’. This photograph in particular succeeds in creating an atmosphere of intimacy in which the pressing questions of any mother can be formulated: Am I able to fulfill the expectations that the role of mother entails? How are these expectations shaped, or rather who shapes them? Can I find my own answers to these issues without being judged? She is holding her baby with gravitas and has a bewildered look on her face. Isolating the subject somehow accentuates the combination of strength and fragility that her expression bears. Strangely, this places the viewer in the position of judge. Through her gaze she is enquiring what is expected from her and it is the viewer who has to provide the answer.

Mother: ing: There is in this work a subtle allusion to film, pushing the narratives, suggesting, playing with movement and the politics of what is being represented. Its layers of meaning together with an unexpected setting make the scene surprising and theatrical. Different gazes trace lines in many directions, which reinforce the lines of the family bonds, and suggest responsibilities and duties in child rearing.

Marina Velez's works are concerned with multiculturalism, family bonds and the photographic image. At a fundamental level, her work tries to explore the relationship between truth, identity and the perception and reception of photography. Velez is interested in the fact that there is a lack of gesture in the very nature of the photographic image. The work, printed on paper, projected onto screens or displayed on plasma/LED screens, hopes to investigate how this affects how people engage with them. Marina Velez studied art in Argentina and Spain, ran an art gallery for 5 years in Segovia (Spain) and has exhibited in many countries both individually and collectively. Marina is presently enrolled at Anglia Ruskin University for a Fine Art Masters postgraduate course. She is also a teacher of foreign languages and a mother of three. www.marinavelez.com/art