LIFE IS ART IS MOTHERHOOD IS ART Exhibition
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents LIFE IS ART IS MOTHERHOOD IS ART, an exhibition of five artists who are mothers — Daniela Kostova (Bulgaria), Aline Müller (Brazil), Quynh “Alex” Nguyễn (Vietnam), Katie Heller Saltoun (USA), and Satomi Shirai (Japan). Curated by CRS co-founder Christopher Pelham, the exhibition will be on view at Tenri Cultural Institute of New York from July 21 – 26, 2025.
This exhibition highlights the inspiring works being created worldwide by mother artists and examines the multifaceted relationship between motherhood and art-making. Through their diverse photography and 2D works, we invite you to consider the challenges that working mother artists face and reflect on motherhood and child-rearing as fundamentally creative acts, inseparably intertwined with art-making, deserving of our loving attention, respect, and support.
EXHIBITION HOURS
Monday, July 21 – July 26, 2025 (closed July 25)
Mon – Thu 12 – 6 pm, Sat 12 – 3 pm
TENRI GALLERY LOCATION
Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, 43A W 13th St, New York, NY 10011
In addition to the above gallery hours, the exhibition will be on view during several receptions and salons being held in conjunction with the exhibition. These are all free events and no RSVP is required.
July 21 7 pm
Opening Reception & Artist Salon featuring live music by mother artist Eunbi Kim + Q&A
July 23 7pm
This Is a Movement Artist Salon featuring live music by mother artists Goussy Celestin and Amma Whatt + Q+A with artists and Niama Safia Sandy, co-founder, This Is a Movement
July 24 7 pm
Artist Salon featuring live music by mother artists Layale Chaker (violin) and Maeve Gilchrist (harp) + Q&A
July 26 3 pm doors / 3:30 pm program starts
Closing Reception & Artist Salon featuring live music by Sita Chay (violin) and Rema Hasumi (keyboard) + Q&A with the exhibition artists + talk by mother artist and author / peacemaker / philanthropist Le Ly Hayslip on Lessons Not Learned from the American War in Vietnam
“Being an artist is to experience a vigorous, experimental life of the mind and of the senses. Parenthood is another enriching experience: primal, haptic and life-affirming. Why are the two still seen as incompatible?” — Jeffrey Boloten and Juliet Hacking, Forward to How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents)
How often do we ask a man how he balances work and parenting responsibilities? How frequently do we assume that a mother has no time for making art or that motherhood and child-raising are not only not creative but less worthy subjects for art? Of course, it’s hardly shocking to announce that pregnancy and childcare require time and energy and that women supply the bulk of it. But this alone does not explain the relative paucity of mothers and women in general represented in galleries and museums. You might be surprised to learn that more women than men graduate from art schools today. We hope you will also be excited to learn that many obstacles facing female-identifying artists can be remedied.
While the asymmetry between parenthood and the world of work is an issue for parents in any profession, the art world – with its informal, often temporary forms of relations – can be a particularly precarious environment in which to make one’s living. Artists rarely receive contracts of employment nor benefits such as maternity leave, pay rises and pensions. Opportunities such as exhibitions and artist residencies come rarely, and even once in a lifetime. Does one have to choose between creativity and family?
— Jeffrey Boloten and Juliet Hacking, Forward to How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents)
Despite societal demands, stigmas, and limitations that restrict a mother’s creative expression in the public realm, mothers nevertheless exercise their creative faculties constantly. Just as creating a compelling work of art starts with seeing without judgment what others have overlooked and channeling one’s creative response into form, nurturing a child requires seeing the child as he/she/they are and responding authentically and imaginatively. Both are intuitive processes of receiving and giving. Both are creative exercises of unconditional love.
“…Motherhood and artistic practice have to be mutually enriching…. …Little does society know that these things actually can work really well together.” — Catherine Rickets, from Artist/Mother Podcast: 160: The World Needs Art that Only Mothers Can Make with Catherine Ricketts, Nov 4, 2024
We aim to bring greater visibility to their inspiring art and life-making work, as well as to the creative and life-affirming contributions of mothers who are not professional artists. These contributions are often ignored, undervalued, and erased. We envision a society where the value of inspiration, creation, mutual care, and unconditional love is recognized and integrated into every aspect of life, without discrimination.
The exhibition will next be on view at Gallery Maronie in Kyoto, Japan, during Kyotographie from April 13 to May 10, 2026.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Stuck by Daniela Kostova
Daniela Kostova is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, installation, video, and performance. She explores themes of geography, cultural identity, and the complexities of translation and communication across borders. Her projects have been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Queens Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Wien, Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva), and Kunsthalle Fridericianum (Kassel), among others. In 2019, she created one of Europe’s largest public art installations, Future Dreaming, covering Vienna’s Ringturm building.
Kostova has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Unlimited Award for Contemporary Bulgarian Art and residencies at A.I.R. Gallery (NYC), ZK/U Berlin, and ArtsLink at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has also contributed as a curator, notably leading the BioArt Initiative at RPI, where she taught digital imaging. Her work has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America. Now based in New York City, she has served as Director of Curatorial Projects at Radiator Gallery, Artist Mentor at NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Program and Board Member of CEC Artslink.
Photo by Aline Müller
Photographer Aline Müller, born in the Brazilian Amazon and now working between Rio and New York, brings an elemental understanding of nature’s power to her intimate portraits of women. In her series curated for Life is Art Motherhood is Art, she captures mothers at different stages of their journey through evocative, almost surreal photographs that reveal the mystical within the everyday of a mother.
Müller’s mothers emerge water-soaked from rivers, beaches, and showers with goddess-like splendor. They inhabit moments of joyous presence captured in delicate close-ups that refuse to hide or pose, but rather document dreamlike moments of maternal reality.
With her generous and almost metaphysical gaze, Aline has the uncanny ability to depict what photography often editorializes out of women’s lives: fluids, curves, small gestures, and all that seems small and menial in life, yet speaks volumes to the internal world of women.
Photo by Alex Nguyễn
Quỳnh “Alex” Nguyễn is a writer, photographer, and independent cultural practitioner based in Central Vietnam. Her interdisciplinary approach, spanning journalism, interviews, photography, artistic programs, and nurturing of daily life itself, stems from a desire to explore alternative narratives rather than accepting the mainstream, deemed self-evident. She believes that the interpretations we hear profoundly shape our beliefs and responses to life’s issues. Furthermore, the challenges faced by modern society are inherently interconnected as consequences of the many problems layered atop one another. Through flexible artistic forms, she seeks to expand the possibilities of alternative narratives, guiding those around her and her readers to explore new dimensions of contemporary issues.
https://alexnguyen.contently.com
Studio Interruptions by Katie Heller Saltoun
Katie Heller Saltoun is a visual artist based in DUMBO, Brooklyn, New York. Her work primarily utilizes oil paint, ink, photographic collages, and woodcut printing to explore the multifaceted experiences of motherhood and caregiving. Saltoun captures the humor, frustration, monotony, and profound love inherent in caregiving, drawing inspiration from her own life and the diverse narratives of mothers and caretakers she encounters. Her compositions often depict dynamic scenes of energy and chaos, as well as repetitive imagery such as refrigerator shelves, spice racks, and rows of snacks, reflecting the repetitive yet vital tasks of domestic life.
Saltoun holds a BFA from the University of Michigan, an MA from Columbia University, and an MFA from Pratt Institute. Her recent exhibition, “Bifocal: Motherhood and Creativity,” was held at the Elza Kayal Gallery in Tribeca, New York. This multidisciplinary show explored the intricate interplay between creativity and motherhood, highlighting the often-overlooked experiences of artists who navigate both roles. Additionally, her work was featured in The American Scholar magazine in an article titled “Tenderness and Grit.”
Saltoun continues to create and exhibit work that resonates with audiences, offering a profound and authentic portrayal of the complexities inherent in caregiving and domestic life. For more information and to view her portfolio, please visit her website at www.katiehellersaltoun.com.
https://www.katiehellersaltoun.com/
Photo by Satomi Shirai
Satomi Shirai playfully explores themes of cultural identity, feminism, motherhood, and the evolving meaning of home, both in the context of migration and as a universal psycho-spiritual experience. Her photographs, often set in domestic spaces, reveal the quiet tensions between order and chaos, belonging and estrangement, the visible and the unseen.
Shirai’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Her photographs are held in the collections of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (K’MoPA).
After earning a Full-Time Certificate from the International Center of Photography in 2007 and an MFA from Hunter College (CUNY) in 2010, Shirai lived and worked in New York City for over a decade. In 2015, she returned to Japan to raise her daughter and now lives and works in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture. Though she has exhibited less frequently since her return, she continues to create new work, often in collaboration with her daughter.