Object New Mourning (I), by Clementine Keith Roach

Motherhood has long been a central theme for the artist Clementine Keith Roach, who began making plaster casts of her own body while pregnant with her first child. Intrigued by her rapidly changing breasts, she began moulding casts of them onto large terracotta vessels sourced from Europe. On our Mother’s Day wish list is her sculpture “New Mourning (I),” 2022, featuring casts of her breasts the day after she stopped breastfeeding. Made from jesmonite, wood and steel, the figures hold up a vessel of what appears to be milk.

“The sculpture marks the separation of mother and child during weaning as both a time of grief and a new beginning,” says the Dorset-based artist. It evokes the dualities of motherhood and all the rich emotional experiences it entails.