Louise Klug
In that Moment

My painting In that Moment depicts a woman in the first few seconds after giving birth to her child. I thought about all the things an island means to me, and thought how these things relate to a woman during childbirth.

The strength a woman shows in labour, the tranquillity of the seconds after the birth and the co-dependence of a woman and child all relate to the theme Island life through a woman’s eyes. The fact that the umbilical cord is still attached to the mother and child shows the dependence one has to the other, an island cannot grow stronger without the strength of its people, and a baby cannot grow and develop without the strength of its mother.

I chose a muted colour scheme to depict the quiet, timeless moment of birth where in a woman’s eyes, all that exists is her child and herself, just for those few seconds.

An Island, our Island, should be celebrated and our way of life embraced, just as a newborn is celebrated and embraced by its mother, its life carefully shaped by its mother’s hand.