Rosie Mudge is an artist who works in many media. She is known for her large-scale paintings with shimmering colour surfaces crafted from industrial automotive paint and glitter. Her evocative surfaces shape latent phrases derived from pop songs, and her work draws on the look, feel, and sound of the late 90s and early 2000s, a time she associates with the overwhelming experience of trying to understand herself in relation to the world and of being profoundly misunderstood by it. Most recently, the sense of worldly experience impacting her artistic practice has extended to the event of her becoming a mother. In this conversation, we unpack some of the experiences and societal expectations around motherhood and parenting that have impacted Rosie as an artist. Most particularly, we discuss works presented at the Iziko South African National Gallery's exhibition ‘Motherhood: Paradox and Duality’, which brings together over 70 artists across diverse media and time periods in South Africa to explore the complexities of mothering in a rapidly changing world.

Rosie Mudge and I sat down to our conversation at the beginning of May 2025.

Iziko South African National Gallery is situated in the Company Gardens in Cape Town: https://www.iziko.org.za/museums/south-african-national-gallery/

SMAC Gallery is located in Cape Town and Stellenbosch. https://www.smacgallery.com/

Paarden Eiland is a light industrial suburb located along the Table Bay in Cape Town.

Investec Cape Town Art Fair is an annual art fair hosted in the Cape Town Convention Centre in February.

Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood is written by Lucy Jones and first published in America by Pantheon Books in 2023.

Audio edit, mix and master done by Gerald Kent

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