The Apple of My Eye, 1991
This body of work uses the relationship of mother and daughter to discuss and question the different ways our society perceives women’s breasts.
The perspective on the subject is autobiographical and some of the pictures are self-portraits as well as pictures of my own adolescent daughter. I’ve also included pictures from everyday life that represent some of the contexts in which we see our breasts and the different emotive qualities each of these contexts holds.
There are many questions around these issues. One central theme the work explores is how we as mothers impart this personal and cultural information to our daughters.
How do we reconcile the exploitation of desire and eroticism in the media; the varied representation (most commonly idealisation) of the breast in fine art, with what we feel about our own breasts? What is sacred, what is profane and what is entirely hidden and taboo? For me, the hidden, the taboo, the profane and the dangerous lurk in the terror most women have around breast surgery.
How do we help our daughters to see their own bodies in ways that give them pleasure, strength and pride? Indeed how important is a mother’s role in forming a child’s thoughts about herself? How can I help my daughter to assert her own power?
These images question personal and cultural assumptions.
The work was commissioned as part of a group show entitled A Daughters View for Watershed, Bristol where it was launched and toured the UK.
Nancy Honey
