Reflections on 'This Is Also Motherhood' at Phillips Gallery

The Descent and the Voice

Photo of Raiye's hand by artist Carolyn Mendelsohn from the This is Also Motherhood Exhibition Collaboration

Today I descended into Phillips Gallery in Mayfair - down into the lower level of this prestigious auction house where women's stories live. Maybe it's because there's more room down there, maybe it feels safer for kids. There's still something about the going underneath.

"This Is Also Motherhood" closes tomorrow. Created by artist Carolyn Mendelsohn in collaboration with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and 10 women with lived experience.

Carolyn told me this was the most difficult and powerful work she's ever created. I understand why. She had to figure out how to honour birth, difficulty and depth without being disrespectful. She set up temporary studios in places where each woman felt safe. She talked with them for hours. She photographed and listened to them with such tenderness.

Their portraits smile and glow from the walls. Through headphones, you hear their voices - edited with such honour they sound media trained, though they're not. They're just strong. Voices of knowing. Voices yearing to support others. The contrast between the smiling faces and what you hear is extraordinary.

Natalie "This is Also Motherhood" photographed by Carolyn Mendelsohn. ""

And the muslin towels. That soft, domestic fabric we use for babies grafted with their innermost thoughts. Not the glamour or the shine. The brutality. The most important points of birth, written in their own hand, hanging so the fabric moves softly as though breathed upon.

For the exhibition, Carolyn Mendelsohn wanted to create something immersive and symbolic. Each woman wrote her story, which she photographed and had printed on muslin; a fabric intimately tied to the earliest days of parenthood. Hung in a gallery like lines of washing, these cloths work as a metaphor and carry both fragility and strength, an offering of memory into shared space.

One woman wrote her son's name. She chose his name. She committed to her and his life without committing suicide, by writing his name. That penmanship - her hand - holds so much.

Here's what I need to say, even though the exhibition has finished: Motherhood voices aren't always heard. Sometimes, like me, I hid. I tried to create a polished version for the world. It was exhausting. Motherhood is not perfect.

Perinatal mental illnesses affect as many as 1 in 4 women and birthing people, and 1 in 10 dads and non-birthing partners. Left untreated, they can be devastating and deadly - suicide is persistently the leading cause of death between six weeks and a year after pregnancy in the UK. Yet with the right support at the right time, recovery is possible.

This exhibition champions maternal voices powerfully. It curates them with care and artistry. There's something I want to say tenderly, not as criticism but as hope: the next step is here. We are starting, as a society to platform the unmediated creative expression of mothers themselves. The art that perinatal clients create in art therapy - that's their hand, their direct voice. I feel that both matter and both are needed.

I'm grateful to Abi, Anna, Catherine, Geeta, Karah, Laura, Laura-Rose, Natalie, Raiye, and Tessa - the extraordinary women who shared some of their most visible scars so others would know they're not alone.

If you're in London tomorrow (18 November 2025), the exhibition is at Phillips, 30 Berkeley Square, W1J 6EX, open 10am-6pm. Free entry with an optional donation to support the MMHA's work.

I'm an art psychotherapist working with perinatal clients. If you'd like to talk about how art therapy can hold what words sometimes can't, or about the unmediated creative work that mothers create themselves, I'd love to connect.