Ariel Basson Freiburg speaks with Matresence curator Catherine LeComte Lecce:
1.) Can you share your background and artistic journey with us, particularly regarding your evolution as an artist? Your practice spans various mediums, such as painting, drawing, installation, and performance art.
My mother has a background in art history and anthropology, so at a young age I was exposed to the arts and historic objects, such as oil lamps. My fascination with paint goes back to a formative trip to Florence. At age 12, I was captivated by Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera.” Its mythical subject matter and sheer scale, every corner packed with over 500 types of flora and fauna, lay the foundations for the work I would later create. Botticelli’s masterful technique opened my eyes to a painter’s ability to wield their medium, bring together the softness of the brush and the clarity of pigment to move the viewer.
As a student at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas, I began exploring ideas of feminine identity and my heritage through painting, installation, and sculpture. In my undergraduate studies at Smith College, I narrowed my focus to two-dimensional mediums. I earned a degree in psychology and studio art, and then immediately continued my practice while receiving an MFA at Boston University.
Figurative painting emerged as a subject through which I could fully explore the interaction between society and feminine identity. I’m interested in a body that is in a state of transition, a state of being revealed and concealed at the same time. Having grown up not fully understanding the Iraqi Jewish side of my family, the gaps of my understanding of my heritage and my family refugee story fueled my artistic impulses.
2.) Can you walk us through your artistic process for Cameo for Dreams, Driving with Afsah, Birthday in the Studio, and Motherhood, your featured pieces in Matresence? What inspired these works, and what message do you hope viewers take away from them?
Each of the works in Matresence stem from my desire to connect with my Iraqi Jewish heritage and with motherhood. At the time of making each of these works, I had an undercurrent of desire to be a mother. Cameo for Dreams and Driving with Afsah both feature amulets that are particular to Iraqi Jews. My family has one Afsah from Iraq remaining– it has a medallion with Hebrew script and is a triangular sack filled with snake skin. Many of the Afsah’s or cameo’s have symbolic elements such as a wolf’s tooth or ceramic teal form with 7 holes with a gold safety pin. Typically a family would pin them to a baby’s clothes or bassinet. When my family fled from Iraq in the 1950s, they had not been permitted to bring jewelry or objects of value. So many of the Afsah’s had been left behind.
Birthday in the Studio is literally its title – I was around 27 weeks pregnant here. Feeling very full of babies and the weight of the humid day. I mustered up the energy to sit at my easel and fumbled about with watercolors to mark that particular day. I was so full of anticipation and curiosity to meet our babies face to face. I was also keenly aware of how my life would change dramatically once they made their way into this world outside of my body. The body transformation was amazing, strange and exhausting. I think after hoping for kids after several years, I just couldn’t believe how quickly the transformation was manifesting.
Motherhood is a combination of fingerprint with ink and watercolor. I made this piece on the edge of pregnancy – during a final IVF cycle. I was thinking of my grandmother, Victoria, and what it must have been like for her with her four children. The challenges of miscarriages, of longing and desire in Iraq, while many things had been changing and evolving, particularly the Nazi influence on the government of Iraq.
Right before the birth of her first daughter, there was a major massacre – the 1941 Farhud. Until the Farhud, Baghdad had been a model of peaceful coexistence for Jews and Arabs.
3.) What specific challenges did you encounter when you first became a mother while also balancing your career as an artist?
With 8 month old twins, teaching, and basic life responsibilities, it’s been hard to have consistent time to be in the studio. One of the babies has stranger danger/ anxiety separation so it adds double guilt leaving them with another caregiver. We have been finding our stride and rhythm– I feel optimistic for the future and cultivating more time for my artistic practice.
4.) What advice would you give to other mother artists?
Take your time – being an artist is a marathon– we are in it for the long haul. So if there is a period of time when things are less productive, trust that the ebb and flow of motherhood and your art will rebalance. Keeping up with works on paper – drawing daily, has been a wonderful repose for my hand and mind.
5.) How do you think society’s perception of motherhood and artistry has evolved, and what changes would you like to see in how mother artists are supported and recognized?
it’s certainly evolved to where we can put it front and center. We can celebrate it by making art that explores it directly. It’s interesting to think about painters like Mary Cassatt, who wasn’t a mother herself but centered her artistic practice around motherhood.
The way it’s evolved now is that motherhood doesn’t always have to be in tandem with or on the sidelines of other aspects of life. It’s not something we have to apologize for. At this point, we’re fully putting it front and center, making space for it, and acknowledging that caring for new beings or young people is essential for society’s continuity.
I think that in all spectrums of the art world, whether in positions of gallery owners, curators, professors, or those who keep artistic practice going, all of it is essential and relevant.
As for me personally, since I’m a first-time newbie mom, we’ll see how it goes. Regarding experiencing guilt or conflicted feelings about pursuing my artistic career as a mom, I have certainly had those feelings.
6.) Have you ever experienced guilt or conflicted feelings about pursuing your artistic career while being a mother, and if so, how have you managed those emotions?
I’ve certainly had those feelings. I know that my children will benefit from seeing me thrive with my art. It will teach them to invest in themselves as well, modeling that self-investment. So, as much as I want to throw everything aside and solely focus all my attention on them, I also have to answer to my art.
It’s a part of me and will essentially be a part of them. This is how things function in our household. There are boundaries, but at the same time, everything is interwoven. Maybe they’ll be overwhelmed by the art and want to escape it, or maybe they’ll embrace it themselves.
It’s always a wild adventure, and you can never predict how kids will evolve. I imagine those feelings of guilt don’t go away. Taking a deep breath and remembering that we’re in it for the long haul, we need to take our time with all of it.
