Adeline de Monseignat: Motherhood in Four Acts

Motherhood in Four Acts is a publication about the sculptures and sculptural installations of Mexico-based artist Adeline de Monseignat (b. 1987, Monaco). It is also a publication about the artist’s experiences of matrescence – the process of becoming a mother – and how these experiences are interwoven with her recent sculptural works. Inspired by a theatrical production or play, the publication is structured in four acts. The first, titled ‘Earth’ presents the work Seedscape, which takes the form of smooth, rounded ‘seeds’ carved from sand-coloured travertine, exploring themes of the seed and its potential for life, the earth and fertility, pregnancy and the womb. The publication features documentation of three presentations of the work, culminating on the rooftop terrace of the Museo MARCO in Monterrey, Mexico, in Monseignat’s exhibition Enceinte (Pregnant). The second act, entitled ‘Fire’, presents the sculpture Uketamo, which considers the experience of giving birth, the emptiness of the womb post-partum, and coming to terms with the newborn’s separation from the umbilical cord. Comprising an outdoor sculptural installation launched in 2024 at Casa Wabi Foundation’s Sabino site, the artist employs tezontle – a volcanic rock – to create mounds with empty spaces inside and mirrors at their bases, reflecting the sky. Seeming to emerge out of the gravel-covered ground, these mounds and cavities resemble volcanoes after an eruption, bringing fertile minerals out of the fires deep underground and into the air of the earth’s surface. The third act, ‘Air’, documents the body of work Skin to Skin, presented at Colector Gallery in Monterrey in 2023–24. The works evoke notions of a mother’s intimate first contacts with their baby, the proximity between them, the bringing together of their flesh, and breathing together. The sculptures that comprise this series juxtapose white travertine – a form of sedimentary rock – and polished bronze, as if mother and newborn are holding