About

We all experience birth – and yet, unlike sex and death (art’s favourite subjects) encounters with birth in contemporary art are rare. Birth is the universal subject – so why is it so obviously absent in contemporary art?

To put it down to the oppression of women’s bodies would be a fundamental reason; but it’s more complicated than that. Explicit and direct images of childbirth elicit profound emotional responses. Birth is universal, but it is also intensely private and individual. Artists are as likely to self-censor their work on the subject as galleries and museums are to shy away from …