Rebecca Goyette

Shelter is pleased to announce Mother, Mother, Mother, Rebecca Goyette’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. The artist’s new body of work explores generational themes within femininity via drawing, ceramics, and quilting, through which she elevates the paternalistic view of holistic femininity from modern trope to a recontextualized narrative backed by lived experience.

With the title nodding toward the Triple Goddess – an archetype of the merger of the mother, maiden, and crone – Goyette explores the connection between mother and daughter, dissecting the cyclical nature of their relationship. On a personal level, the transition from a nurtured daughter into a caregiver for a mother gives way to a visual journey of familial love, comfort, and kinship.

Collaboration is essential to Goyette’s process. In recent years she began working alongside her mother, Louise Goyette, on a series of quilts. The quilt is a physical representation of love and comfort imbued with the clearest example of modern alchemy. The resourceful nature of transforming scrap into shields, the quilt embodies a physical manifestation of love and protection. Goyette seeks to expand upon this practice of providing an expression of comfort by imbuing her work with generations of feminine mythos and legend.

While quilting has allowed for a direct communication between Goyette, her mother, and her ancestors, her works on paper and ceramics illustrate a conceptual focus on themes of generational trauma, reconciliation, and connection to nature. With a fresh perspective, Goyette asks us to question the disconnect of the modern world with the natural world around us. We see this dichotomy in ceramics that reference the privilege of recreational horseback riding; now a hobby of the wealthy, but once a commonplace means of transportation and one of the many connections to the natural world around us. Through Goyette’s eyes we not only get a glimpse into the artist’s life, but we are also invited to consider – or reconsider – our own relationships within the framework of the Triple Goddess.