This painting depicts Sikelela Owen's mother, who appears as the youngest child in the first work of the exhibition, now holding her own grandchild, Owen's eldest son Eli, on her back. The image quietly completes a generational arc: from daughter, to mother, to grandmother.
Although it is not visually detailed in the painting, the cloth used to carry Eli is deeply significant. It is the same cloth Owen's grandmother used to carry her, which her mother then used to carry both herself and her brother. Owen also used it to carry her own children, particularly while painting in the studio. Her eldest son was very much a “studio baby”, often on her back as she worked.
The cloth becomes a kind of living textile – an object that holds memory, labour, care, and repetition. It connects to a wider reflection on women’s work and domestic making: the crocheted blankets her mother made for her children, the blankets she made for her, and those her grandmother made before her. These acts of making and holding become quiet archives of care passed between generations.
While Owen's practice has not traditionally focused on pattern, she has become increasingly interested in textiles, motifs, and fabric histories – from African cloth traditions to European floral patterns, haberdashery, and the visual culture of domestic interiors. To Owen, these patterns behave like another form of inheritance: aesthetic, tactile, and embodied.
Visually, the painting is pared back and restrained. Owen's mother stands in a doorway, dressed simply in contemporary clothing – jeans, a pale top – while Eli rests on her back. The palette is minimal: whites, blues, soft skin tones. The image is gentle and understated, allowing the emotional weight to sit in the gesture itself: the act of carrying, the closeness of bodies, and the continuity of maternal care across generations.
