Birth - Judy Chicago - Jessica Silverman Gallery

Birth is a reclining nude, laboring landscape, formidable mother, and cosmic representation of genesis. Comprised of nearly one million stitches that pulsate like pixels, the black tapestry consists of an open-stitch crochet that accentuates the existential play of positive and negative space. Monochromatic compositions are rare in Chicago’s oeuvre, but appropriate to this primordial moment at the beginning of time.

For all the Venuses and Madonnas of art history, depictions of childbirth are rare. A fecund pomegranate-like womb bursts from between her legs. Creation undulates through her body, generating tides that flow from the tips of her fingers and hair, setting the universe aglow with vibrational energy.

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