STRETCHED (FOR THE ELLEN JOSE ART AWARD FOR YOUNG WOMEN)

BAYSIDE GALLERY, VIC, OCT-DEC 2025

Curated by: Joanna Bosse & Nicole Salvo

STRETCHED was commissioned by the Ellen José Memorial Foundation as part of the triennial Ellen José Art Award for Young Women, alongside five other finalists: Clare Jaque Vasquez, Casey Jeffery, Jenna Lee, Amalia Lindo, and Jacqui Shelton.

This body of work explores the experiences of a generation of first-generation Chinese migrant parents who were born during China’s one-child policy era and are now navigating the unfamiliar territory of raising multiple children in Australia. The body of work was conceived and created during the first year of the artist’s second child’s life—a period marked by profound transformation, exhaustion and self-discovery.

Working across photography, textiles, sculpture and text, MeiMei Hodgkinson examines the complexities of becoming a mother of two while carrying the cultural legacy of growing up in a society that promoted the one-child family for more than three decades. Her labour-intensive figurative sculptures, constructed from deadstock silk satin offcuts and Japanese glass beads, reflect the repetitive and relentless demands of early parenthood. Each work was developed progressively over a ten-month period, made between breastfeeding cycles and late at night.

Through STRETCHED, Hodgkinson considers the conscious and subconscious ways that culture, family history and lived experience shape our understanding of parenthood and ourselves.

Refusing to separate her role as a mother from her role as an artist, Hodgkinson positions the challenging and often overlooked aspects of parenthood as the “muse” of her practice. By embracing the complexities of everyday life, she proposes that art is not separate from life, but formed through and embedded within it.