Mother and Child
Ilana Goor
Date 1973 | Technique Bronze | Height h.1.80 | Location Campus University of Haifa, Israel
This sculpture constitutes a continuation of the Bedouin Women series created by Ilana Goor in the mid-seventies and focuses in general on their femininity and their power. Similar to others of Goor’s sculptures, this sculpture also has undergone a conceptual abstraction. The mother protecting the child, enveloping him into her until he is invisible and the two are perceived as one sculptural unit, as an independent entity differentiated from its surroundings. The figure of the mother is anonymous, faceless, primitive and with clumsy proportions. She is gathered into herself and her general form appears as a tent wherein she and her son are located. A clue to her existence and her presence are expressed by a hand and two bare feet poking out. The woman is offering shelter to her son inside her body in a form evoking a pupa which enables the organism inside it to develop until it is ready for birth. This composition supports the concept that the mother’s purpose is to protect the life of her son, to shelter him from the dangers lying in wait for him until he reaches maturity. Goor’s viewpoint and her treatment of “the other” are phrased in this sculpture with empathy drawn from her own diversity. “I don’t quite understand what I am doing” Goor testifies while sculpting the work. The work process was intuitive and derived from her personal feelings, which she herself had undergone.
