Conference article

The purpose of this study was to investigate how female artists can turn mothering practices into opportunities to get back the self-confidence they have lost. Women in Taiwan bear most of the responsibility to raise children after being a mother. Many of them were well-educated and have professional careers, but the burden of mothering made them struggle between family and career, thus making self-actualization a challenge for them. Based on interviews, observations and image analysis, the researcher focused on the case study of a Taiwanese female artist, Dan-Chi Huang (1982-). Her serial oil paintings titled “Creation of Mother and Children’s Image” depicted her two children from babies to preschoolers. Having struggled between managing the family and her career without any support to care for the children from her aloof husband and his family, she felt lost for years. Instead of escaping from these difficulties, she decided to draw her daily mothering experiences. Huang tried to keep the personal feeling of each event in her works, therefore, the works were not only the records of her life but the reflections of her emotions or the projections of her wishes. Without the limitation of narratives, she could tell new stories and brought new viewpoints for her mothering experiences through her works. The research found that Huang’s art-making has provided a chance for her to re-encounter herself. She integrated mothering and art practices into a process of re-recognition of self, which allows her to regain confidence and find new meanings for her self-identity.

Mothering practice, art-making, story-telling, self-confidence, self-identity