As Mothering Sunday approaches in the UK, we look to the groundbreaking paintings of Scottish artist Caroline Walker, paying tribute to the everyday, unseen moments of care in early motherhood, rarely depicted with nuance in art. In her lustrous oil paintings of quiet domestic scenes, observed from a voyeuristic distance, her subjects seem unaware of being looked at as they labour. Night Feed I is an intimate scale oil on board depicts a new mother breastfeeding her baby at night in the soft glow of the street light. The mother’s gesture is both tender and evokes the intense physical fatigue of round-the-clock nursing a newborn. Walker often works from her own photographs, and her subjects are sometimes members of her own family – her sister-in-law features in this painting. There is a feeling of closeness and comfort, but also the isolation of the domestic space, another important element of Walker’s works. The painter has explained: “The subject of my paintings in its broadest sense is women’s experience, whether that is the imagined interior life of a glimpsed shop worker, a closely observed portrayal of my mother working in the family home, or women I’ve had the privilege of spending time with, in their place of work. From the anonymous to the highly personal, what links all these subjects is an investigation of an experience which is specifically female.” Walker opens a major exhibition, Mothering, at Hepworth Wakefield in May, exploring themes of motherhood and early years care.

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