Watching Them Grow. Watercolour Series: A Tribute to My Motherhood

Have you heard the phrase that women are expected to raise kids as if they have no job, to work as if they have no kids, and to look like they have neither? It sounds absurd, yet for many years I tried my best to fit into that impossible standard. Sometimes it even "worked", but the price for my mental health and wellbeing was extremely high.

For a long time in my creative career, I pretended I had no children. I mean I didn't keep them secret, just behaved as if I were capable of working as usual. I reviewed my Skillshare students' projects the day after giving birth to my second child. On the photo below my son is three months old, and I am illustrating a book for an American publisher - a dream project with a tight deadline and good money. I drew it literally with one hand at a time, because my baby would only sleep on my arms, so I kept swapping my left and right hands while continuing to work.

I have many similar stories.

You know, when people hear that I am a mother of two and also an artist and illustrator, they often assume it is just a cute hobby. But it is not a hobby. It is my job, the work that pays my bills and supports my family.

For years, when I spoke about my art or wrote artist statements, I never mentioned that I am a mum. I thought this was inappropriate, that "professionals" don't mention kids, as if motherhood might make my art less serious. Now I see how foolish that was. I am a mother, and that fact shapes my time, my emotions, and my way of seeing the world.

As a Russian immigrant artist in the UK, I am also "supposed" to speak about traumatic experiences, politics, war, injustice, culture differences... (There are so many expectations, aren't there?) But the truth is, what I care about the most is my children.

Because they grow too fast, and watching them I feel how quickly time runs.
Because being a child is not as easy as it looks from the outside.
Because raising them brings back memories of my own childhood and makes me rethink it.
Because their inner world is so wonderful, rich, and wild—their imagination knows no limits.
Because I worry deeply about their future in this unstable, broken world and want to honour the gentle, deliberate moments when I'm still able to protect them and to solve most of their problems.
Because I am tired of mothers having to compete with people without parental responsibilities on equal footing.

This new watercolour motherhood series is a tribute to my motherhood as an essential part of my life that I no longer want to keep silent about. I am an artist, and a mum of two. It is a rather challenging combination, but it is real, powerful, and worth being seen.