My upcoming show, Day After Day, is divided into four seasons: Overstimulation, Endurance, Lessons and Becoming. Each one represents a different part of my first eighteen months of motherhood.. and each needed its own method of painting. This post is about how those four seasons came together, what they mean, and why the work looks quite different from one part of the exhibition to the next.
A Bit Of Context
My next solo exhibition at Sixteen Gallery was booked in and organised when Lilah was only four months old. At the time, I remember thinking it was irresponsibly ambitious and if I’m honest, totally reckless. We were in the pits of Lilah’s “colicky episodes”, meaning very broken sleep and exhausting days, plus I was training for a half marathon. I’d overcommitted myself already, so whhhyy not book a big show for the following year. It was probably me desperately trying to claw myself back, to feel more in control and to reignite the creative flame that always used to burn so ferociously.
The idea of the seasons came to me after I read back through the journal entries I wrote when Lilah was a newborn (an emotional endeavour, as my moods were all over the place). Since she was born, motherhood has felt like I’ve been thrown around by various climates: blizzards, gusts of wind, all consuming heat, a shedding of leaves.. growth. There have been some really obvious shifts in how I have felt and understood myself, and I wanted the exhibition to reflect as much of that as possible rather than forcing it all into one mood or style. It also gives a nod to the way I have always worked – painting in response to the season of life I am in. My ideas were confusing me and pulling me in different directions.. so rather than fight that, I let the show naturally become four seasons, each reflecting a different emotional mind-scape of motherhood.
Overstimulation
Endurance
Lessons
Becoming
Season One: Overstimulation
The show starts with pieces that I intended to be intimidating, explosive, passionate, suffocating and most importantly, relatable. The large mixed media works on paper came to life from feelings of being completely overstimulated.. and I don’t mean mentally overwhelmed, I’m talking about the hot, smothering bodily feel of it.
Being climbed on, little fingers shoved up your nose, having your hair pulled, your trouser leg tugged, noise coming from every direction, being needed again and again before you can even have a sip of water, hearing the same sound over and over and over, body bites, nails scratching.. Plus, loving a little person beyond ways you can ever imagine while also simultaneously wanting absolutely nobody to touch you/breathe near you ever, ever again.
There have been moments in motherhood where I have physically felt my nervous system glitching. Head pulsating, ears ringing, chest sweating, heart rate elevated, eyes blood shot, neck aching, thoughts getting darker and darker.. it is complete overwhelm, body and mind shutting down. I sound dramatic, I know.. but I’m just letting it all hang out with you here.
I wanted these paintings to feel like this. The marks are fast, erratic, rhythmic and repetitive.. and often, I ended up working on them in an exhausted, almost trance-like state, allowing one mark to trigger another and another until the surface became crowded with information. I wanted to overwhelm the paper.
However – I was also very conscious that I didn’t want these paintings to just represent chaos. The colours and composition were chosen carefully.. and there is some peaceful harmony running through each piece. A gentle nod to breastfeeding and the female form is also evident.
Season Two: Endurance
If Overstimulation is about being totally pushed to the edge, Endurance is about what happens next.
You just have to keep going.
These 18″ x 24″ works are bold, colourful paintings on paper made with a careful hand, a tiny brush and fluid acrylic paint. They are built from hundreds of small-medium, intuitive shapes painted closely and carefully beside one another. One shape determines the next shape.. and slowly, deliberately, botanical forms begin to emerge.
As I seriously didn’t want any of the shapes to touch, making these types of pieces is painstaking. I have to sit very close to the paper with that tiny brush and purely concentrate. There is absolutely no rushing them, so as you can imagine with my limited time and energy, they have taken months to complete. In many many ways, the process feels completely opposite to the life surrounding it. My days with Lilah can feel like a hurricane. Potty becomes getting dressed becomes breakfast becomes an activity becomes lunch becomes nap becomes another activity becomes dinner becomes bath becomes bed, and suddenly an entire day has gone. And what’s left at the end? A zombie on the couch (or a zombie writing a blog post?).
I decided to commit to this style of painting because they help me slow down. Lilah would fall asleep and I would commit that whole 1.5 hours to sit (hunch), rest and calmly apply paint. I used them as physical and mental therapy.
Motherhood has required a kind of endurance I had never ever, ever understood before having a child. Not the kind of endurance you need to run a marathon or dance in la club all night, but the kind of endurance you need to get through an entire day of your patience being tested.
Repeating yourself, reading the same book, playing with toys, listening to the same song over and over, wiping butts, remaining calm, stopping hands go in dog bowls, avoiding an accident, making another meal, saying NO for the twentieth time when you said you’d never be that NO parent, picking the same things up off the floor, dog bowls again.. there’s no coming up for air with an active tiny person. It is serious endurance.. and hey, I’ve ran very long distances. That ain’t nothing, in my humble opinion.
These paintings operate in much the same way.. as there is no shortcut with them. They are made by showing up again and again, mark after mark, day after day.
Season Three: Lessons
Motherhood has been a monumental exercise in discovering how little control I actually have, and how little patience I’ve always had. Season Three is about the things I have learnt from these discoveries.. and perhaps more importantly, the things I am still in the middle of learning. These are the smallest works in the exhibition, and their aesthetic is more playful and almost whimsical in places.. but there is also something slightly uncomfortable about them. They are deliberately unfinished, with exposed paper and negative space suggesting that there is always more to learn.
Much like Season Two, each shape and brushstroke influenced the next. But this time, I let the shapes touch.. I let the paint bleed, blend and layer over itself, sometimes in ways that felt awkward or unresolved. In Season Two I had been almost obsessively careful about keeping each shape separate, which made my hand slow and precise. With these works, I desperately wanted to get rid of that control. I wanted to allow myself to make mistakes and more importantly.. leave them there.
This season felt right. Sooo much of parenting is responding to what is actually in front of you rather than what you have read in a parenting book, or what your Mum told you, or what a friend suggested. You will make mistakes, you will f*ck it up, you will adapt, you will learn and you will carry on..
Each painting embodies one of those ongoing lessons: learning to let go and surrender, growing into an entirely new life, discovering how to love both my daughter and myself, finding hope when it feels impossible, looking at the stranger I have become in the mirror.. and understanding just how much weight a heart is capable of carrying (a lot).
The artworks naturally became botanical and organic (similar to season two).. I think partly as a nod to Mother Nature and also because roots/growth felt like the most natural visual language for the season. Brushstrokes remain quite visible, paint overlaps, some areas are unresolved, pencil marks seem irritated or confused. I wanted the paintings to feel visibly human, as though the process of making them is still there on the surface.
Season Four: Becoming
The final season displays quite a big shift in my work. These paintings are sitting kind of uncomfortably between the artist I have been and the artist I can feel myself becoming. They are transitional works, which means they are not necessarily an example of what my next work will look like.. I guess they are me trying to figure that out.
Unlike the earlier seasons, which are totally wrapped up in the emotions of motherhood, these canvases are here to look beyond it. I am trying so hard to think less and trust instinct more. After spending so much of motherhood stressing, planning, anticipating and making decisions, I don’t want to bring that same chaotic mental energy into my workspace. I want my hand to move before I have time to overthink it.. allowing colour, brushstroke, pressure and composition to be applied more instinctively.
Over the last few months, I have started to realise that I am.. in a way, the mother of my paintings. That thought has made me want to really hone in on how each piece begins, and how I want my practice to develop moving forward. I don’t want to start with a subject/experience/feeling and simply fill the empty space with paint.. I want to bring the piece to life first. That is what I began exploring with the Becoming canvases. Each one started with a fully stained background.. almost like I gave the painting its first breath and its first sense of soul. From there, I just let my hands, mind and instinct work together.
With these specific works, I tapped into what I mentally keep feeling drawn to: lakes, mountains, long grass, flowers, space, distance, horizon. For some bizarre reason, I am yearning to swim, to roam, to walk through tall grass and smell flowers, to stand next to a lake or beneath tall trees and look at something much bigger than myself. After so long looking down at my feet.. at toast crumbs, boiled egg bits and spilt milk.. I can feel myself wanting to lift my head again and look ahead.
All of this energy is in these paintings. There are hints of landscape, botanicals, exciting discomfort, fresh air, the smell of trees, complex feelings, burning ambition, a juxtaposition of radiating hope and never-ending hopelessness.. as you can tell, the works are uncertain and complex. I’m OK with the fact that they might seem unfamiliar and busy.. because that’s where I am.
Originally, I thought Becoming would mean reaching some new, cool and comfortable version of who I am. I don’t actually think I believe in that anymore. I’m not sure we ever really become anyone. We move, we change, we evolve, we grow, we go backwards, we go forwards, we still scream into pillows (yesterday)… These works reflect that ongoing process. They still show hints of the artist I was, but they also show me experimenting, loosening, changing direction and trying to understand the artist I am becoming.
The Alchemy Of Motherhood
The Alchemy of Motherhood is the largest canvas I have worked on to date, and I have been living with her for around six months. She has been thrown at, ignored, loved, resented, scribbled on, covered up and brought back to life more times than I can count..
The first colour I threw onto the intimidating blank surface was Payne’s Grey. I wanted to take back some control, and it felt right at the time: deep, familiar, and similar to the skies of my hometown, Cheltenham. You can barely see it now, which is fine – I guess part of the journey. Next, small jars of blue, lilac and soft yellow were gently poured onto the surface around the time I stopped breastfeeding. Here, I let the canvas help me process that sad and complex ending.
As the months and weeks went on, the painting became so much more physical. Literal buckets of watered down paint were thrown across her aggressively, lovingly, excitedly.. Fierce red brushstrokes were applied on angrier days, repeated pencil lines became a kind of Groundhog Day rhythm.. and some days all I had time for were a few fast pastel marks. Lilah has made her own marks too.. scribbling with pastel and experimenting with charcoal, leaving physical evidence of herself on the painting. At first, this was an accident.. but seeing as though the whole show is essentially about her, I embraced it.
For so so long, the canvas was ugly.. muddy, confused, overworked and difficult to look at. Honestly, there were times I turned her around and neglected her completely. I really, really didn’t want to see her, I didn’t want to converse with her… and it’s evident in the work. She has some really strange parts to her.
Towards the end, floral notes began appearing. I think – perhaps consciously I was trying to cover the ugly parts with something more beautiful and trying to make her easier to look at. It made the painting less truthful for a moment I suppose, but even that felt familiar. That urge to cover up the difficult parts and to make things appear prettier than they felt. Was I trying to disguise the frustration, the bad decisions, the moods, the days I wasn’t the mother I wanted to be? Perhaps.
But none of it will ever, ever disappear. It is all still underneath.
This painting was never intended to be an aesthetic, sublime masterpiece. She is not here simply to attract people. She is love and suffocation, comfort and neglect, anger and forgiveness, beauty and ugliness.. all colliding on the same surface. Chaotic, busy, complicated and completely alive.
She is motherhood on canvas.
Day After Day by Emma Howell
Dates: 25th – 30th September 2026
Venue: Sixteen Gallery, Montpellier Street, Cheltenham, GL50 1SW
Launch event with bubbles: Friday 25th September at 6pm
Parent & Baby Morning: Saturday 26th September at 10am