In today’s Finding Art In Life, Italian photographer and mother Lucia Dovere takes the time to answer my questions that try to uncover how parents and caregivers find time for themselves, care for their own well-being, and draw inspiration as artists and creators.
Lucia’s responses blew me away. In fact, she talks a lot about the Madonna in Christian culture as an inspiration for her, which is something she and I have in common. I wrote “Madonna del Latte” and couldn’t agree with Lucia more: the virgin mother is a stirring model.
Born in Naples, Lucia Dovere is an accomplished artist with a degree in Art History. Her journey took a profound turn after becoming a mother, as she turned to photography to navigate and heal from postpartum depression.
Lucia pursued a two-year specialization in photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. Her work delves deeply into the relational and bodily space between mother and child, exploring themes of immense fullness and voids, hidden and torn-apart freedom, and the complexities of compromised breastfeeding.
Since 2009, Lucia has operated a photography studio specializing in destination weddings. This endeavor evolved in 2018 with the establishment of Mill Studio. Founded in collaboration with a colleague, and based in Milan and Naples, Mill Studio focuses on wedding, portrait, lifestyle, and editorial projects.
Through her work, Lucia continues to capture the nuanced and sacred experiences of motherhood and life. It’s with great pleasure that I introduce Lucia – I hope you find her work and words as moving as I do.
(By the way, you can catch up on other Finding Art in Life conversations: Helen Garber, painter and mother; photographer and mother Tori Ferenc; and singer and mother Amy Kyle. And as always, you can listen to our podcast on Apple and Spotify.)
What’s the most unexpected place you’ve found creative inspiration as a parent?
In the mother-son dyad, I experienced the specter of loneliness. More properly, isolation.
In the mother-son relation, you're dealing with addiction… an absolute and profound form that often implodes in the dyad itself. There is nothing more intense. The bodies that transform acquire a sacred form, and it’s from this sacredness that I started or even re-started. I want to tell through my photos the truth of a moment that feels like a miracle. Whatever it takes.
When you parent your creative self, what form of discipline do you use?
My creative self becomes the place of my escape from the daily routine of mother/parent. It’s my absolute space where I dedicate myself to my truth and where I feel I can express myself without constraints, with a time to respect that is mine alone… a time dedicated to me as a resource. It’s something that helps me accept the form of submission to the dependence of my children and their dependence on me.
Who are your caregiver-artist inspirations?
My first inspiration is the study of the Madonna in Christian culture. The Madonna is the Mother of Mothers from which so much iconography takes inspiration; the cult of her, and therefore that of the mother, is very ancient.
In ancient times, a multitude of peoples in different areas of the world venerated a primordial female divinity, represented in different forms, but always associated with the generating force or the Earth.
Within this vast iconography, I focus in particular on the theme of the Madonna breastfeeding the Child. Following the regulations of the Council of Trent in 1545, the Madonna could no longer be represented with her breasts uncovered since such nakedness could not be tolerated in the Mother of God.
Bare breast feeding is very often still a taboo. This surprises and horrifies me at the same time.
Probably no other image like that of breastfeeding, which literally means giving one's body as a meal to another human being in need, conveys the idea of complete loving donation, and therefore comes close to what, in the Christian tradition, is the highest self-donation.
Among contemporary photographers, my inspirations are certainly Aneta Grzeszykowska, who in the series Mama (2018) subverts the mother/daughter relationship by portraying her daughter interacting with a strangely realistic silicone doll modeled on the artist.
Other notable sources of inspiration include photographers Lisa Sorgini and Amy Woodward, who join me as a part of the MAMA GAZE project.
For more from Lucia, follow her on Instagram here and here. I’ll be back with another conversation soon. In the meantime, here’s my latest podcast episode featuring writer-mother Nicole Haroutunian:
One last thing… here’s a Parent-Artist residency you should know about
I wanted to mention that The MOTHRA residency is an artist-parent program that supports artists who are also parents or caregivers, allowing them to attend residencies with their children.
Hosted at Artscape Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island, the residency provides accommodation and studio space at a subsidized rate. The goal is to create an inclusive art world that acknowledges and values the relationships between parenthood and artistic practice.
The program embraces the challenges and transformations that come with being an artist-parent, providing a supportive environment for creativity and exploration… and information about the 2025 residencies will be announced in Autumn 2024. Mark your calendar to check their site this fall.