Each artist approaches mothering and carework from a distinct perspective within their practice. Babaei explores the importance of rest, allowing her artistic practice to follow the tender, demanding cadence of caring for an infant. Kenyon reflects on the act of re-mothering herself while taking care of her child. Williams reckons with the invisibility of domestic maintenance and the way it can render her presence ghostlike within the home. Kanbal’s practice takes a more abstract form, shaped by fragmented moments of making that emerge in the margins of mothering.
Together, the artists move through their artistic practice, foregrounding care, maintenance, and feminised labour as integral to their work. In doing so, the exhibition invites viewers to pause and consider: who is doing this work in your home?
Join us for our mid-exhibition reception on February 21 from 10am-12pm! We’ll have kid-friendly activities, including Saturday morning cartoons and a weaving workshop. Enjoy plenty of breakfast treats, from cereal to donuts.
Notes about Funding:
This exhibition was made possible by LevelUP! 2025-2026 Pilot Program in partnership with Mothra and Balancing Act. Thank you for the mentorship and funds that allowed me to curate this show.
About the Curator
Rachelle Wunderink is an interdisciplinary settler artist currently based on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee in “Onguiaahra,” also known as Niagara Falls, Canada. She completed her Master of Fine Arts at York University, where she was awarded the Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC) in support of her thesis exhibition. In 2025, she presented two solo exhibitions at IA&A Hillyer in Washington, D.C., and at Eastern Edge Artist-Run Centre in St. John’s. In the Shadows of Your Home is Wunderink’s first solo curatorial project and reflects her ongoing interest in storytelling around care, slowness, and mothering. Rachelle is a proud mother of two children and can often be found in her studio listening to podcasts such as Normal Gossip or This American Life.
Setayesh Babaei is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose practice explores the embodied and material dimensions of motherhood, caregiving, and intergenerational memory. Working across sculpture, installation, photography, and participatory forms, she traces the quiet gestures and invisible labor of maternal life. Grounded in material experimentation and feminist, autoethnographic methodologies, her work centers endurance, rest, and care as radical, life-affirming acts.
Bethany Kenyon is a full-time artist currently living and working in Hamilton, Ontario. Her work grows out of the real, tender, raw moments of her life—motherhood, caregiving, grief, reparenting, and the ongoing search for self. She moves easily between materials, intuitively choosing whatever feels right in the moment: textiles, sculpture, papier-mâché, crochet/knitwork, found objects, and anything else that calls to her. At any given time, her studio is alive with a variety of projects all slowly unfolding simultaneously. Art isn’t just something she makes—it’s the thread that runs through her days, connecting the quiet, ordinary moments to the deeper emotional stories she carries.
Amber Lee Williams is an interdisciplinary artist based in St. Catharines. She has a BA (Honours) in Studio Art from Brock University (2020) and an MFA from the University of Waterloo (2022). Her research resides in and around the home, often observing and photographing the daily lives of her children, as well as drawing inspiration from the possessions and photographs left behind by deceased loved ones. Navigating the inevitable shifting of relationships, and thinking about how everyday objects can serve as prompts to remembering, are important methodologies in her work. Primarily working in various experimental photographic and sculptural mediums, Amber not only explores the ways in which we remember, but also all that is lost. With a particular interest in the concepts of grief and longing, her work reflects on the ephemeral nature of existence.
Deniz Kanbal is a Canada-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice translates the moods and rhythms of life into living, abstract forms. Having lived and traveled across Canada and internationally, her work is shaped by a deep sensitivity to place, movement, and adaptation. With a background in fine arts, and graphic design, Deniz works fluidly between intuition and structure. Working primarily with water-based media and installation, her practice grows alongside parenthood, shaped by interruption, limited time, and persistence, allowing process to remain central to her work.
