By Lily Darling

A rendering of the sculpture in its planned location

In his piece Mother and Child, George Petrides combines an emotional portrayal of the artist and his own mother along with commentary on the sculptural tradition’s portrayal of the female body.

Petrides often melds personal and historical narratives to apply a matrifocal perspective to the Greek sculptural tradition. This theme was most recently explored in Petrides’ Hellenic Heads exhibit, which is soon to be on view during the 2024 Venice Biennale. In a 2022 Forbes review for Hellenic Heads, Natasha Gural praised the Greek-American sculptor for conveying “deeply personal narratives that provoke universal dialogues around key historical events that impact Greek culture and history” (Forbes).

Mother and Child continues Petrides’ focus on blending biography and history. Petrides was inspired to create the sculpture to celebrate his mother. "I've had a wonderful, intense love for my mother throughout my life,” Petrides elaborated. “A lot of my art is about my family and familial relationships. This piece is more about myself and my mother, the serenity of that relationship."

The Making Of

It took over two years to prepare Mother and Child for installation. Petrides was heavily influenced by the Venus of Willendorf, the Archaic korai statues, and the Aphrodite of Knidos while creating Mother and Child. Through this research, Petrides noticed that there was a substantial absence of modern sculptures depicting pregnancy. This scarcity directly informed the symbolic significance of this piece and how it frames the source of life.

Petrides is known for implementing a hybrid of traditional and modern techniques in his artistic process. Petrides began by sculpting in clay, referencing highly detailed photographs of his model to create the initial maquette. The clay form was then 3D scanned, modified in sculpting software, and 3D printed in plastic. Petrides repeated this process five times before the final version was completed.

The finished statue will be made from recycled materials from the Netherlands. Petrides spent months developing the expertise and technology to turn this recycled material into the final sculpture. He noted how, since the United States’ recycling programs have been massively impacted by China’s waste import ban, he had to source these materials from Europe. The artist also invested in the machine technology necessary to ensure quality control measures were in place throughout the process.

Mother and Child will be fabricated in-house at Petrides’ New York studio, then transported to Athens complete for mounting. The use of recycled materials highlights the importance of sustainability and social responsibility; both of which are necessary to ensure a flourishing future for generations to come.

Standing at 209 cm, Mother and Child matches the height of Zeus of Artemision–one of the few surviving bronze statues from fifth century Greece. This piece presents a woman who is not weakened by her nakedness–there is no coy gesture suggesting shame, just the image of a mother striding forward, protectively cradling her unborn baby.

Petrides added: “Any public sculpture of this size is a multi-year project. I am happy to say that it is being erected and I believe everything is coming together–from the ecological, personal, and historical aspects.”

Prehistory and the Female Nude

In The Civilization of the Goddess, archeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas suggests that the cross-cultural and cross-chronological presence of goddess cultures in Neolithic Europe suggests that women held a central, venerated position in prehistoric society. Gimbutas argues that Neolithic Europe was not a time “before civilization,” as the genesis of civilization is rooted in its “degree of artistic creation, aesthetic achievements, nonmaterial values, and freedom which make life meaningful and enjoyable for all its citizens” (Gimbutas, viii). However, the incursion of the Indo-European Steppe Pastoralists in the Copper Age gradually saw these same societies shift from matriarchal to patriarchal. The collision between these opposing cultures can be observed in the social and symbolic materials that remain.

The Venus Figurines were the earliest representations of the human body. It is no coincidence that these sculptures were devotional objects depicting female fertility. These figures typically feature enlarged breasts, stomachs, hips, and–when visible–vulvas. According to Gimbutas, “it was the sovereign mystery and creative power of the female as the source of life that developed into the earliest religious experiences… In fact, there are no traces in Paleolithic art of a father figure” (Gimbutas, 222).

For centuries, the anthropological old-guard classified the Venus Figurines of Paleolithic Europe as depictions of an unknown fertility goddess. Recent scholarship has proposed that, due to their cross-continental prevalence, these sculptures were actually self-portraits created by women who had survived childbirth and the brutal environmental factors of the Upper Paleolithic era. Scholars have pointed to the fact that the exaggerated proportions of these representations are primarily derived from the perspective of a woman looking down at her own body (McDermott). The wide-spread presence of the Venus Figurines could suggest that these objects were treasured, well-worn heirlooms, passed down from mother to daughter as an early medical education tool (Johnson).

The Cycladic figures of Greece’s Bronze Age demonstrate the erasure of the “female source of life.” The female Cycladic sculptures depict slim-figured women with arms crossed below their chests–their breasts being only gendered attributes visible. While exceptionally rare, some of these folded-arm figures feature an enlarged abdomen–suggesting that they depict a stage of pregnancy.

The Greek Period

The korai (singular, kore) are the most recognizable examples of monumental sculpture in Archaic Greece. The Lady of Auxerre–now housed in the Louvre’s permanent collection–is an early example of such figures. Her right hand is raised to her breast in supplication, suggesting that the figure represents a votary to a fertility cult.

The korai were meant to embody an idealized vision of youth, emphasizing the virtues held by the Archaic aristocracy. However, there is a distinct, gendered difference between korai (female) and kouroi (male) types. Like all korai, the Lady of Auxerre is portrayed as fully clothed. The kouroi, however, were exclusively portrayed in the nude.

In Ancient Greece, male nudity was used to accentuate mythic, masculine power. This “heroic uniform” was associated with triumph, glory in combat, and moral excellence. For Greece’s male ruling class, pride in the naked body was associated with important social practices that separated the commoners from the elite, women from men, and foreigners from Greeks (Jean Sorabella).

The first life-sized representation of the female nude in Greek history was created by Praxiteles of Athens in the 4th century BCE. The Aphrodite of Knidos is an iconic image and the subject of great scandal upon its creation. Serving as a counterpart to the male nudes commonly associated with Classical Art, the Knidian Aphrodite is depicted nude as she prepares for a ritual bath. Famously, one hand hides her modesty while leaving the rest of her body exposed–suggesting that the viewer has caught the goddess off guard. It is a coy gesture that emphasizes what is exposed and what is hidden. This position is now referred to as the “pudica pose” or “Venus pudica.” Etymologically, pudica is related to the Latin word pudēre, which translates as: “to be ashamed.”

After Praxiteles, Aphrodite was predominantly portrayed as naked; even when the goddess was clothed, Classical artists were more overt in referencing her sexuality. While some scholars have argued that depictions of Aphrodite’s overt sexuality affirms her power, it is impossible to ignore the deeply entrenched misogyny of Ancient Greece. Two key descriptions of the Knidian Aphrodite–Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 36. 20-1) and the pseudo-Lucian (Amores, 13–14)–provides evidence that Praxiteles created the statue for fetishistic purposes, designed to evoke lust in the men who viewed her. In this context, the goddess’s nudity is not liberating but rather titillating.

Female nudity was inherently associated with vulnerability and weakness during the Hellenic period and beyond. Compared to the “heroic uniforms” of her male counterparts, the Aphrodite of Knidos and the figures inspired by her were conceived for the voyeuristic gaze. To borrow the words of John Berger: “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

Madonna del Parto and Unsettling Interiority

Hostility toward acknowledging the female body followed Mediterranean art well into Christendom. During the medieval period, images of the pregnant Mary were one of the few depictions of pregnancy that were not considered obscene. Mary’s perpetual virginity sanctified her maternal body–now the dwelling place of divinity–and transformed her womb into something that transcended humanity itself. In the eyes of the Church, Mary’s holiness was not attributed to birthing the “son of God,” but because she did so without being “tainted” by intercourse.

“The Gestating Virgin Mother” - an icon by hagiographer Sophia Papazoglou, in the church of Saint Eleftherios on Acharnon Street in Athens, Greece

Depictions of natality were solely confined to religious art due to men’s aversion to women’s bodies and genitalia. In Witches, Midwives, & Nurses, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English observe how women were associated with seemingly magical processes: their ability to create life and serve as autonomous healers for peasant populations and other women alike created the belief that women had access to mystical knowledge inaccessible to men (Ehrenreich and English). While the Church actively stood in the way of developing professional medical practices, female lay-healers were often the only practitioners who would aid those in need, especially pregnant women.

The lay-healers’ autonomy and knowledge divorced from the realm of men presented an existential threat to masculine sexuality and gender identity. Consciously or not, the label of “witch” was a means to violently control women who did not adhere to patriarchal authority. According to both the Church and the State, witches’ power solely derived from their sexuality or–more accurately–their ability to evoke lust in men.

The persecution of female sexuality naturally extended to a fear of the female body itself. Jack Hartnell, author of Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages, observed how the “conspicuously external nature of the penis and testes and what [medieval doctors] saw as the vacant interiority of the vagina and uterus” created the medieval characterization of femininity as an “unsettling interiority.” Women’s bodies were not just passive receptacles, but an unknown, dark absence existing in eternal opposition to male “presence.”

Positive representations of pregnancy were therefore confined to religious art depicting Mary and, occasionally, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Though this stigma began to shift between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, female bodies only gained more visibility due to the expansion of Marian devotion and representation in the later Middle Ages.

The Next Step Forward: Depicting Pregnancy in the Modern Age

Petrides realized that pregnant women were rarely represented in sculpture during his research. “From then until now, there seems to be some discomfort with the pregnant state,” Petrides commented. “While depictions of the mother with the born child are extremely prevalent, pregnancy itself is glaringly absent.”

Indeed, there are few contemporary examples of pregnancy in public sculpture especially. Damien Hirst’s Verity, 2012 and The Virgin Mother, 2005, were subject to great controversy at the time of their creation. Both sculptures portray a pregnant woman with half of the subject’s anatomy–including the fetus–exposed. Like much of Hirst’s oeuvre, Verity and The Virgin Mother were inspired by seventeenth century “cabinets of curiosities,” in which anatomical study was combined with the macabre to invoke a sense of fetishistic curiosity. It recalls the Knidian Aphrodite’s voyeuristic display while replacing lust with grotesque fascination. Both are impersonal representations of pregnancy that only confirm the patriarchal aversion to the female body.

In contrast, Petrides’ Mother and Child harkens back to the Venus figurines of prehistory to portray a tender moment between a woman and her unborn child. Petrides is also directly responding to the Knidian Aphrodite, framing his subject’s nudity as liberating in the sense that it acknowledges a natural state. Mother and Child therefore recontextualizes the Greek sculptural tradition to convey a positive, bodily affirming sentiment about pregnancy.

“This piece portrays a specific, tender moment that was deeply inspired by my love for my own mother,” Perides said. “It is incredibly satisfying to me when mothers approach me, with joy, to tell me how much they like this piece and how I have conveyed the source of life.”

As a symbolic gesture, Mother and Child speaks for mothers of future generations, all of whom are taking the next stride forward. While the nation’s structure was crafted by the hands of lauded patriarchs, Mother and Child contends that the creative, maternal presence holds equal significance in Greece's past and present. Through his intricately woven historical references, Petrides reminds us that the mother is the modern day hero.

George Petrides’ Mother and Child Presents a Modern Depiction of the Source of Life