Featured Artists
Hannah Cooke
"Going into the public eye with my video works almost felt like an outing. I knew I had to create these videos, but at the same time I feared I would sideline myself. Looking back, everything felt very existential for me, though the hormones might have played a part in this as well. Surprisingly, these works have opened a new access to the art world, have opened new doors for me. Colleagues reached out to tell me their stories, I was able to build a strong network that is interested in the same questions of equality and support for one another. Through these works, my personal perspective on what is important as well as my art practice was strengthened. I’m not worried any more of getting the “mother artist” stamp and losing my underlying, critical view of current systems in the process. The years have shown me that my artistic focus stayed the same. I’m not saying that my role as a mother won’t be part of future pieces, but in general I’m interested in questions and topics that are critical of society as it is. Having my daughter and an artistic career has sharpened my view and made the priorities more clear. There is no room for bullshit anymore."
Hannah Cooke is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Germany. Central questions of her work concern the concepts of institutional and hierarchical critique, the infiltration of systems, as well as the questioning of standards, regulations and role concepts. Cooke’s work is often based on thorough research. The outcome finds it's form in all kind of media, as photography, video, performative and installation elements. In a humorous manner she question well established power structures and reveals the characteristics of the art world. In addition to numerous prizes, grants and project funding, in 2022 Hannah Cooke received the prestigious MO Kunstpreis awarded by Museum Ostwall. Her video works "Ada vs. Emin" and "Ada vs. Abramovic" gained her work international recognition. Since then, her work has been discussed in internationally renowned exhibitions, newspaper articles, radio and TV features.
Katie Cuddon
“I am a mother to a 5-year-old girl called Alma. When Alma was born it spurred one of my most productive periods of making during my career as an artist. This was in part enabled by my maternity leave being immediately proceeded by a two-year Leverhulme Fellowship – an application for which I submitted shortly before giving birth to Alma. This fellowship meant I could step back from my role as an academic and lecturer and devote the hours Alma spent at nursery to making new work. I found the experience of being pregnant, giving birth and caring for a small child at home radically reconfigured my understanding of space, time and my environment. As a sculptor, I found this new perspective on the principal coordinates that give form to sculpture, inspiring and I felt compelled to make work about my new experience: my relationship with my daughter and the outside world.”
Katie Cuddon is an artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne where she is also a Professor of Fine Art Practice at Newcastle University. Katie has been making sculptures, mostly with clay, for nearly 20 years. Her work develops expressively and instinctively in a studio practice that explores psychological representations of the human body and the intimate interpenetration of art and life. Katie studied at Glasgow School of Art and then The Royal College of Art before becoming a Lipman Research Fellow in Ceramic Sculpture at Newcastle University. This was followed by a Sainsbury Scholarship in Sculpture and Drawing at the British School at Rome and the inaugural Ceramics Fellowship at Camden Art Centre. Katie’s solo exhibitions include A is for Alma, Hatton Gallery (2024), Night Portraits, De La Warr Pavilion (2023), Spanish Lobe, Camden Arts Centre (2011) and Pontoon Lip, a collaborative exhibition with Celia Hempton at Cell Projects (2014).
Sarah Maple
“I have always been primarily motivated by my interest in feminism. Early in my practice, I focused on people’s disdain or lack of interest in it. When I had a child, it reiterated further how subjects relating to the female experience are often labelled ‘other’ or unimportant. I was told by a friend that work about Motherhood would be ‘boring’ and ‘alienating’ to my audience. Since then, I have been trying to disprove this. I aim to highlight that whether you have a child or not – the experience of care (giving or receiving) is universal and should be recognised.”
Sarah Maple is an award winning multidisciplinary artist known for bold artworks that challenge notions of identity. Her work spans a variety of media such as performance, painting, collage and photography. Much of Maple's inspiration originates from her mixed religious and cultural upbringing. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Kingston University and has exhibited her work internationally at galleries and institutions including Tate Britain, Golden Thread Gallery and York Art Gallery. In 2019, she was selected for Syllabus V, an independent learning programme run by Wysing Arts Centre. In 2020, she created a semi-autobiographical video work in the style of a sitcom which debuted on Sky Arts. Her recent commissions include The Decolonising Institute at UAL, New Art Exchange and Fondazione Imago Mundi. Her work is in collections such as Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Soho House and The Hyman Collection. Sarah lives and works in Sussex.
Lauren McLaughlin
“I became a mother at the age of 20 and raised my son (who's now 19) as a single parent so I have been mothering for the entirety of my art career. I found the art world - especially back then - to be notoriously unkind and unsupportive to parents, coupled with a complete lack of value for any artwork which explores maternal experiences; especially from a working class perspective. The constant battle to remain in the industry, to keep producing art, to be taken seriously, to be listened to, and for my work to be shown made me feel incredibly isolated but ultimately led me to found Spilt Milk. I hoped to connect with other artists who were m/others, and were making work about these invisible experiences, and I wanted to create a bigger platform for these artists to be seen. In doing so, I’ve connected with an international community of other artists who inspire and support me. It is incredibly encouraging to see increased visibility and support for artists m/others in recent years, and many wonderful examples of how an open dialogue and the right support structures can ensure more artist m/others can move forward in their careers.”
Lauren McLaughlin is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer based in the North East of Scotland. She is also the founding director of Spilt Milk Gallery CIC; a social enterprise whose mission is to promote the work of artists who identify as (m)others, and to empower (m)others in the community through socially engaged activity. Lauren graduated with BA (Hons) Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London in 2012, and MA Applied Arts & Social Practice from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh in 2021. Her work has been shown Nationally and Internationally, recent exhibitions include Formula for Care at Tonic Arts and NHS Lothian Charity, Artist/Parent at AIR Gallery Manchester, Embracing our Differences Billboard Exhibition, Florida USA, and The Royal Scottish Academy’s 198th Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh. Lauren’s work is included in the Birth Rites Collection; a permanent, public collection of artworks exploring the theme of birth, currently housed at The University of Kent. Her practice has been publicly funded by Creative Scotland, King’s College Cultural Institute, The Hope Scott Trust, Magnetic North and Aberdeen City Council.
Kübra Müjde
“Contrary to the decline I had envisioned in my artistic career after becoming a mother, there has been serious and exciting progress. My work ‘For I am here, I am naked, I stand in front of you and I am dancing! Do you have nothing to say?’, symbolising the power of women, was raised as a flag on Newcastle Castle, and my piece ‘Sleeping Girl’ was proudly exhibited at the Open Submission 2024 at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. These wonderful developments have incredibly motivated me. Life has become much richer and more colourful thanks to my son Albert, who is about to turn one. I'm drawing very detailed sketches every moment he is asleep and I use a room I've transformed into a studio at home to paint.”
I am Kübra Müjde, an artist, art educator and entrepreneur based in the UK. I grew up in South East Turkey, and studied Fine Art in Sanliurfa, Bolu, and Istanbul, and am currently completing my PhD at Yeditepe University. My life-long passion for working with children from diverse cultural backgrounds resulted in the ‘Untamed Sketches’ project, launched in 2024. I started to give art workshops and specialised museum tours in 2013, and have since developed this into my own brand Qbicart. Qbicart was officially founded as a company in 2017 in the UK and now employs over 40 tutors. As a mobile art school we provide online and face-to-face workshops to individuals around the world, and have forged collaborations with various renowned institutions and companies.
I am a trustee of the Newcastle Art Centre, a UK-based charity that provides exhibitions and project support to artists from the North East of England.
Sara Qaed
Sara Qaed is a UK-based artist from Bahrian. She is a mother, Illustrator, and Social Artist. Her works encompass various mediums including collaborative drawing, experimental animation, collage, wearable pieces, editorial cartoons and things in between. With a strong sense of social and political criticism, her works explore the language of drawing as a daily practice to document and archive news with a sense of black humor. Besides that, Sara uses her visual diaries and sketchbooks as a timeline surface to trace variety of things such as marks and conversations.
Through a continuous publication of cartoons and comics (@saraqaed), Sara collaborate with the viewers to discuss controversial topics in the Middle East such as corruption, power, occupation and human being. Her cartoons are displayed on multiple platforms such as, Al-Hudood Satirical News Website, Roman Cultural Magazine, and Tanween Media. In 2019, Sara won Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought for caricature and Mahmoud Khuhail award for Editorial Cartoons.
Besides that, Sara co-create social artworks with communities, classrooms, and care homes. She experiment with the possibilities of illustration, playfulness and human performance. Her latest work can be seen as part of Khaleejesque Magazine “DIY: Fear Print” (2019), New Writing North (2020) and “Windows” project with Art Diamond members in Gateshead (2021). Full album can be seen on (Instagram: @a__k__m__l)
Kate Sweeney
“My practice is concerned directly with ideas about heritage in the context of queer and adoptive families, exploring how relations are formed beyond the materials and myths of blood and DNA. My work utilises moments and materials from the everyday to focus upon the way bodies share information, feelings and histories. Since the isolation of lockdown, which coincided with the arrival of my son, I have been using my practice to help me find language and shape to my role as a parent. It is a slow unfolding process of portrait making; searching in the margins and looking in the mirror for the adoptive mother’s body. I make inks and drawing materials from my intimate environment. Like producing maternal breast-milk and the act of breast-feeding, these inks and the drawings and writings I make with them are pre-lingual forms and rituals of communication – they are tools to speak through before the words come. Becoming a parent has been transformative on a spiritual and creative level. It has forced me to compartmentalise my practice; I have less time to do more things and so have begun to reflex a previously unused ‘hyper-focus’ muscle to work with a new urgency and focus. The right to be a mother has been something I have had to justify, persuade and doggedly pursue into existence. It has been a physical, visceral, bodily experience that has fundamentally changed me. My work now seeks to explore and attest to these experiences and transformations.”
Kate Sweeney produces drawing, animation, video and writing to explore how familial bonds are formed beyond the materials and myths of blood and DNA. She draws upon her feminist and queer activism and discourse surrounding queer kinship and LGBT+ history. Her practice is often located around archives, libraries and other sites of cultural repository and memory as well as shaped by her lived experiences. Kate’s studio-based practice and research includes collaborative and participatory projects in academic, educational and community settings. Her recent drawings were completed as part of a residency with D6: Culture in Transit and the National Trust. Her artist’s book, ‘the wings of a moth without the moth-bit in between’ was commissioned by the Women Artists of the North East Library in 2023. Her video works have screened nationally and internationally including Barcelona Short Film Festival, Sydney LGBT+ Film Festival, Manchester Animation Festival, Zebra Film Festival Berlin, AnimaTricks Helsinki. She completed her PhD at Newcastle University in 2020.
Conway & Young
“The difficulties of parenting and making art in a post capitalist world has sharply tuned us into the structural politics of access - who gets to care? Who get paid for it and who doesn’t? Who gets to “work”? Who gets to care for themselves amongst it all? Both art making and caring for young children are undervalued economically and intellectually in the UK, thinking about one has helped us think about the other. We ask to be paid properly for the work we do, we protect our time by setting clear boundaries, we talk to people about the limitations of how we work before we take on a project/commission and we try to develop projects that will have a long life.”
Conway and Young are artists, graphic designers and educators motivated by designs critical, social and political potential. They have been working on commissioned and self-initiated projects together since 2006.
Conway and Young, Spike Island, Bristol, England, 2019 © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos.