The Mother Lode is a series of solo exhibitions by artists who are also mothers, exploring motherhood as a profound creative force rather than a detour from artistic practice. Drawing on the term mother lode – the principal vein from which wealth is extracted – the project reclaims motherhood as a source of abundance and power.
The project asks how motherhood can open new dimensions of creativity – often described by artists as a shift in perception, time and selfhood, a move into a fourth dimension. It considers how care, labour, sacrifice, joy, rage, transformation and myth coexist within maternal identity, and how these experiences reshape artistic language and process. Rather than idealising motherhood, The Mother Lode celebrates its complexity and contradiction, honouring all the facets of what it means to be a woman, an artist, and a mother today.
Through painting, sculpture and installation the series celebrates practices that are materially rich, psychologically charged and intensely felt. Each exhibition stands alone, while collectively forming an evolving collection of maternal voices.
Exhibitions are open 10am – 4pm Monday – Friday and by appointment on Saturdays.
FREE YOGAJennifer Pitchers’ painting practice engages with resistance, paradox and fantasy, investigating the interplay between the conscious and unconscious. Through dream interpretation and stream of consciousness she negotiates internal conflict, extracting meaning from colour, shape and illustrative line. Motherhood is embedded within her work, which reflects a deeply personal yet expansive search for truth and self-understanding. Following an extended hiatus to raise her children, Pitchers’ return to studio practice becomes a powerful assertion of maternal creativity as something re-emergent rather than diminished.
Jennifer Pitchers
Opens: Saturday 21 February 2026 6pm – 8pm
Runs: 21 Feb – 14 Mar
Portrait © Jesse Quinn
Kristina Tonev’s practice spans durational performance, installation, sculpture and painting, with a focus on time, mortality and care. Her ongoing work with woven straw vertebrae – objects that change and adapt to their environment – embodies labour-intensive processes that echo maternal care and endurance. Through slow, attentive making and performance, Tonev explores how bodies, materials and time are held together through acts of maintenance, vulnerability and devotion. Her work situates motherhood as an ongoing negotiation with fragility, transformation and survival.
Kristina Tonev
Opens: Thursday 19 March 2026 6pm – 8pm
Runs: 19 Mar – 11 Apr
Anna Ilsley’s myth-inspired paintings confront motherhood, fertility and the politics of the female body head-on. Her vivid, fleshy figures push against the limits of the canvas, asserting presence, desire and power. Drawing on ancient myth and contemporary experience, Ilsley’s work interrogates how women’s bodies are controlled, revered and feared. Within The Motherlode, her paintings reclaim maternal and fertile bodies as sites of agency and excess, challenging historical and cultural narratives that seek to contain them.
Anna Ilsley
Opens: Saturday 18 April 2026 6pm – 8pm
Runs: 18 Apr – 9 May
Portrait © Jesse Quinn
FREE YOGA