A figurine and child stand in a miniature pool with milky white liquid dripping into it. Zooming out, a breast pump sits above. In a separate scene, the mother figure plays with her child in a picket-fenced, sunflower-filled front yard, made with an unusual medium, a placenta.
After the birth of her first child, artist Katy McCarthy, former UT lecturer and first recipient of the St. Elmo’s fellowship, said she wanted to expose the realities of motherhood. “Chorion Song,” McCarthy’s second solo exhibition at the Ivester Contemporary, reveals that truth — grotesque, but beautiful. The chorion, the membrane surrounding an embryo of a reptile, bird or mammal, ultimately forms the placenta. McCarthy used her own as an artistic medium.
“I found my placenta really inspiring as an object,” McCarthy said. “I’ve never held anything that visceral.”
McCarthy follows a movement of international artists depicting placentas in art. English artist Zoë Buckman, Australian Megan Robertson, Swiss Farah Widmer and Dutch Femmy Otten created placenta-inspired pieces. However, “Chorion Song” is among the rarer exhibits to include the actual organ in the final product.
After giving birth, McCarthy saved her placenta, knowing she wanted to create art with it. When someone watched over her now 7-month-old daughter, Sive Cheney, McCarthy disappeared for a few hours, and the experimentation began.
“I didn’t feel creative … for the nine months I was pregnant,” McCarthy said. “As soon as she was born … I felt more open, more curious about wanting to make work.”
Holding her daughter in her arms, McCarthy pointed to a spot on the gallery floor. She said the shiny, fluid-like blob follows the shape of one of Sive’s spit-ups, something mothers know all too well. Megan Hildebrandt, art and art history associate professor of practice, said McCarthy’s work empowers her to continue her own maternally-focused work.
“Her work being showcased right now packs a punch,” Hildebrandt said. “Even 10 years ago, it would feel like this, but right now, it’s just especially meaningful. Personally, it makes me feel (braver) to keep making work about being a woman and a mother.”
Having worked with McCarthy in 2019, Hildebrandt said historically, representations of motherhood follow two extremes: painted in a perfect light, or as a full rejection of maternal instincts. McCarthy’s work refuses to honor those binding categories.
“Female bodies have been caught in (everything political) right now,” Hildebrandt said. “One of the bravest things I think we can ask of our creatives and artists right now is to show folks a different side to something that’s contested, especially in a place like Texas.”
Kevin Ivester, owner of Ivester Contemporary and soon-to-be father of his own baby girl, said McCarthy’s work is a reminder of the realities of parenthood.
“When I look at this work and think about my own future as a father … I think about this mother and child figure on what looks like a whole different planet,” Ivester said. “It’s isolating and terrifying. I get some reassurance that … there’s a lot of flowers, a home and a picket fence that grow out of that too.”
