EXHIBITION: TRACEY MOFFATT

A voice shrills in the darkness: “Mother of God, mother!” So begins Brisbane-born artist Tracey Moffatt’s new film MOTHER, with characteristic melodrama. The film, from Moffatt’s latest solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, is a montage of on-screen mother moments, produced in collaboration with long-time co-conspirator Gary Hillberg. The clips featured range from black and white dramas to kitsch 60s’ comedies, from Sigourney Weaver in Aliens to Jennifer Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous. Moffatt has said of the film that, “[its message] could be very simply: ‘It is tough to be a Mother’.” But it could just as well be, ‘it’s thankless work, to be a Mother’. Or perhaps, ‘it’s amusing to be a Mother’. Mothers being shut out of daughters’ lives, mothers ripped away from sons, mothers protecting their children from harm and from their own foolishness, mothers embarrassing, teasing, weeping: MOTHER revels in scenes of all of these.

It’s hardly uncharted territory for Moffatt, who has long dealt with maternal themes, notably in her 1990 work Night Cries – yet it’s only now that Moffatt has begun to play with the range of the motherhood experience. For such a staunch feminist as Moffatt, it comes as something of a surprise that so few of the scenes chosen feature truly strong women. But what she does show, extremely well, is the sheer breadth of mother-child relations. While much of the joy of this film is about recognising the various films and television shows that make up its parts, MOTHER also has a joy that is all its own: at times humourous, at times touching, Moffatt’s work is above all life-affirming.

Jul 23–Aug 15, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 8 Soudan Lane, Paddington, 9331 1919, roslynoxley9.com.au