Print (MA)
Ruby Bateman
Ruby Bateman is a London based visual artist working in an expanded print practice. She is currently using super 8 film, choreography, ceramics and print to discuss the maternal. Ruby graduated from the University of Brighton with a first BA (Hons) degree in Print in 2017 and has exhibited in shows accross the UK. She has worked with social-political arts causes such as Birth Rites Collection and Big Arts Herstory Project (BHAPS) and was shortlisted for the Birth Rites Collection new works 2020. Ruby is particularly interested in collaborating and exhibiting with artists, galleries, organisations and collectives concerned with maternity and gender.
For a long time I have been indirectly making work about my maternal relationships. Now using super 8 film, choreography, sculpture and the body, I am beginning to express a deeper maternal consciousness.
Adrienne Rich’s writing first taught me that motherhood can be a means for patriarchy to limit, pervert and oppress woman’s maternal power and knowledge. Reading feminist theories exposed me to violent and compelling modes of language in their investigation of institutionalised motherhood. This kind of rhetoric initiated a deep mistrust and ambivalence for the maternal experience, which love and loss had previously led me to desire.
I refer to my sculptures as ‘mother/child stand-ins’. The (dis)connections and gestures I expresses with them on film reflects how my personal and political relationships with ‘the mother’ intersect. Filming on super 8 has been transformative for me. Working in an old motion picture medium has allowed me to create visual codes, narratives and style, integral to situating herself within the maternal discourse.
Maternal Consciousness Pt 1 Short Film
‘Maternal Consciousness Pt.1’ is a short super 8 film on maternal ‘revelations’, marking the first in a series of moving image works. The piece explores themes of maternal longing and fear, swaddling, maternal labour, and reconnection from loss.
In many ways ‘Maternal Consciousness’ is a speculative artwork, as I am not yet a mother. The visual language I have created from critically exploring the politics of motherhood alongside my own maternal history in this film has brought me closer to understanding my choices and freedoms as a woman.
In many ways ‘Maternal Consciousness’ is a speculative artwork, as I am not yet a mother. The visual language I have created from critically exploring the politics of motherhood alongside my own maternal history in this film has brought me closer to understanding my choices and freedoms as a woman.
Medium:
Super 8 FilmSize:
2:21 minutesMaternal Consciousness Pt 2 High res
‘Maternal Consciousness Pt.2’ is a short super 8 film on maternal ‘revelations’, marking the second in a series of moving image works. The piece explores themes of existentialism from nature. Within the context of its expansiveness and greater order, one can gain perspective, freedom and sense of place. I experience this existential perspective often on walks, and on these journeys my desire for motherhood and its power to connect to myself, womanhood and the phenomena of existing at all, becomes affirmed. This continues my maternal questioning and whether it’s possible to be a free woman within the confines of maternal expectation.
Medium:
Super 8 FilmSize:
2:55 minutes
Unwrap 1
Digitally collaged film stills from 'Maternal Consciousness Pt.2' super 8 film.
Medium:
Digital Collage
Unwrap 2
Digitally collaged film stills from 'Maternal Consciousness Pt.2' super 8 film.
Medium:
Digital CollageImagined Maternal Consciousness Pt. 1
The pandemic has moved all our artwork online. Unable to install my super 8 film 'Maternal Consciousness Pt.1 and 2.' in a tangible exhibition space, I have decided to super impose it onto a photograph of an imagined space. This is a speculative piece 'digital drawing' showing an abridged version of the film.
Medium:
Super 8 Film and PhotographySize:
0:41 minutesImagined Maternal Consciousness Pt. 2
The pandemic has moved all our artwork online. Unable to install my super 8 film 'Maternal Consciousness Pt.1 and 2.' in a tangible exhibition space, I have decided to super impose it onto a photograph of an imagined space. This is a speculative piece 'digital drawing' showing an abridged version of the film.