An absolutely stunning and deeply moving exhibition for me, by a single mother of neurodiverse children, for whom “painting has become a form of therapy and an act of resistance against patterns imposed by society, institutions and formal artistic education. Joanna Fluder’s work features a selection of gouaches on paper and canvas, alongside new, premiere installations. Her unique artistic language, which merges surrealism, humour, a rich imagination, and personal mythology, enables the artist to explore interhuman and interspecies relationships, parenthood, sisterhood, and caregiving.”
I love the idea that an artist mother benefits from tis rare opportunity, where mothering neurodiverse children is not an obstacle in someone’s artistic career, in Fluder’s case it has become an inspiration, a way of living and seeing the world through her children’s eyes and combining life/working with them as collaborators rather than treating caring and mothering and family life as things separate from art practice. It resonates a bit with Mierle Laderman Ukeles(Duchamp’s granddaughter): One night I just said to myself, “If I am the boss of my freedom, then I call maintenance, art.” What am I doing? I’m taking a Western notion of art as freedom, and taking a non-Western notion of repetitive systems, and saying that’s art. I’m crashing them together, actually. It’s not such a happy union. But I said, if I have this freedom to name, like my [honorary] grandfather Marcel [Duchamp] gave me, I choose maintenance and I call it art. I call necessity art.”(The Baby on the Fire Escape Pg.61-62)
