Where Women Become Earth I, wax crayon and oil pencil on paper
Copyright 2009, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, All Rights reserved.

After the birth of her son, Artist-Scholar Barbara Gabriella Renzi (“Lule”), created several works as part of her Where Women Became Earth series (see second image below). Devoted to depicting her sensations, feelings, and impressions of her own birthing body and post-birthing sentiments, the images merge representations of the human body with those of land and sky. In Where Women Become Earth I (above), which Renzi created using wax crayon and pencil on paper, the artist renders a raw image of a woman in nature, her body blending with and becoming the earth. The woman’s body is full and appears to breathe or contract with the natural world.

In addition to serving as representations of full pregnancy and birth, Renzi’s images serve to tell a story of how art can serve as a powerful tool to the processing of birth after it has been experienced. For many who give birth, strong emotions and sentiments follow the experience. Having an artistic outlet to work through these feelings can empower women as they think about what their bodies have been through. Renzi explains the meaning of her works and how important the art making process was for her following the birth of her son. In the artist’s case, she experienced obstetric violence and making art helped her to rebirth herself following a traumatic birth.

These paintings were born from the image of woman as earth: a body that receives, shelters, transforms, and brings life into the world. Motherhood appears here not only as a biological experience, but as an ancient force of nourishment, endurance, tenderness, and renewal.

The women do not simply inhabit the landscape; they become it. Their bodies unfold into fields, roots, hills, and fertile ground. They carry life as the earth carries seeds, nourishing the world through touch, memory, presence, and love.

These images emerged during a fragile and painful period of my life, after a traumatic birth and a time of profound disorientation. Painting became a quiet place where I could return to myself. Through colour and form, fear slowly softened into tenderness, pain became movement, and silence found a voice.

I worked with simple materials: wax crayons and coloured pencils, tools connected to childhood, immediacy, and instinct. Their simplicity allowed me to create without judgement, before technique, before explanation, following only the need to give shape to what could not yet be spoken.

These works tell a story of transformation: of women becoming earth, and of suffering becoming a path towards healing. The mother appears as the one who nourishes the world, but also as someone who must herself be held, protected, listened to, and cared for.

In these paintings, the body is soil and memory, wound and shelter, darkness and beginning.

I had a very difficult labour. I was induced without really knowing what was being done, and the whole process was extremely long. The baby was turned the wrong way – we were back to back – and everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong. The epidural was badly administered, the gas ran out, and in the end I had to undergo an emergency caesarean section. Thank God, my baby was finally born safely.

A few days later, I began to feel very unwell. I did not understand what was happening to me, and I also started hearing voices. I rushed to the doctor, who prescribed antidepressants. I only took them at the beginning, but then I stopped because they made me feel as if I was living in hell.

All I wanted to do was paint. It was the only thing that soothed me and gave me some relief. I dreamed of women becoming the earth that nourishes us, and that is what I painted. In these drawings, I used wax crayons and children’s coloured pencils, and for the yellow woman I used oil pencils.

Art helped me to put myself back together, and later I went on to study psychology. Of course, what I have shared with you is very personal, but I felt it was important to explain how significant art has been in my life and the role it played during that period.

After three or four months, I felt completely well again, but the experience made me appreciate art in a new way. I had always painted and drawn, but I had never given it the importance it deserved.

Like her artwork, Renzi’s words and story about how she went through birth are helpful to others as they visualize birth and post-birth.

Dr. Barbara Gabriella Renzi is a philosopher, artist, and psychologist whose work explores the intersections of feminist aesthetics, embodiment, and myth. She holds PhDs from Roma Tre University and Queen’s University Belfast and teaches philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies in Germany and the UK. Her current research examines motherhood, natality, and the feminist sublime in art and literature, with a focus on how mythic and religious narratives shape experiences of birth and becoming. Much of Renzi’s scholarly work is available online. See this page for more information on her artwork and artistic practice.

For other Visualizing Birth posts on the power of making birth art before or after birth, see, for example: Making Birth Art at Home; Chrissy Foreman’s “Landscape of Birth” and Transformations of Pain and Fear; Visualizing the Mind/Body Connection through Sarah Ulrich’s “Birthing Quilt”; and The Work of Amber delaine: Visualizing Birth Through Color.

Where Women Become Earth, wax crayon and oil pencil on paper
Copyright 2009, Barbara Gabriella Renzi, All Rights reserved.