Caroline Foulks
Born: Solihull, England
Lives: Preston, England
Things Have Been Getting on Top of Me, 2025
Textile
150cm x 200cm; expandable
Caroline Foulks work centres around the unspoken and unseen side of motherhood. Foulks’ practice is a personal look into her own relationship with being a parent, analysing her belief that the word 'mama' is a loaded label. Her aim is to start conversations about how life changes for women once they have children in ways that are usually hidden from society and sanitised for public consumption. The loss of self that many mothers’ feel is a focus in Foulks’s practice. By shining a light on these unspoken aspects of motherhood, Foulks aims to undo damage done to women in regards to society's expectations, and dismantle the oppressive systems put in place that are designed to keep women compliant and complacent. The embroidery, repetition and collage techniques that Foulks uses are time consuming and have historically been looked down upon as 'women's work.' This intentionally parallels the unseen labour that women take on in the home with the aim to expose the automatic expectations of mothers in society.
The work Things Have Been Getting on Top of Me is an attempt to take back some of the time for myself that I’ve been forced to give away due to assumed caregiving duties as ‘mama’. Much like the expectations placed on me by society as soon as I got pregnant, this piece is ever expanding, growing and changing. Embodying and exposing the overwhelming weight of everything I am supposed to silently carry in the role of ‘mama’, both mentally and physically.