ARTIST STATEMENT
The “Sh!t I Do” series is inspired by Sara Ruddick’s “Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace” (1989), which conceptualizes mothering as a form of physical, intellectual, and emotional labor continually shaped by and responsive to the needs of the child and the surrounding environment. Employing photography, collage, and digital drawing, I reassemble everyday symbols into flattened scenes, tinged with the absurd, using satire to highlight the complexities of motherhood under capitalism.
Constructed through metaphor and symbolism, these staged compositions — featuring myself and my children — unfold like moments of frozen theatre, portraying a mother at work. Her unflinching gaze demands she not be ignored. The domestic setting may suggest comfort, but warrants deeper consideration. Outfits fashioned with pictures of demonetized Indian Rupees situate the mother’s subjectivity within histories of devalued labor. An unfashionably long list of administrative tasks confronts her daily (Life Admin). Slips of paper pinned to her body become open tabs of worry, as Goddess Saraswati—the river of consciousness—looks on (Worrying). A resting Buddha sculpture subverts the tension between apparent heroism and the unseen labor that supports it (Cleaning). Lace patterns draw from textiles from my past, influenced by techniques introduced during India’s colonization, referencing my heritage and honoring the undervalued labor of women before me.
Ultimately, I aim to disrupt cultural narratives that cast motherhood as inherently joyful, instinctual, and a private act, to assert that mothering is a learned practice shaped by societal milieu, thereby making it politically and economically relevant work.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Shweta Bist is a lens-based artist born in India and currently living in New York. Rich in implied narrative and informed by a politics of care, Shweta’s work explores the emotional lives of women and mothers. Her career began in finance, but took a creative turn after she became a mother of two daughters.
Community building is an integral aspect of Shweta’s practice. In 2022, she co-founded Mother Creatrix Collective–an egalitarian group of artists mutually supported through critique, conversation, and skill-sharing, while curating shows focused on caregiving, matricentric, and ecofeminist themes. She has served as an artist-mentor with Spilt Milk Gallery, an Edinburgh-based organization that supports artist-mothers and carers through exhibitions, residencies, and professional development.
Bist’s work has been well-received nationally and internationally, shown at venues including Hera Gallery, Candela Books + Gallery, Ely Center for Contemporary Art, and Old Stone House in Brooklyn (US), as well as the Procreate Project Archive and Unit London (UK). She is a recipient of the 2025 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Photography and is the 2025 Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation Fellow. She currently maintains an independent studio practice in New York City.
© Shweta Bist