Eleanor Oakes

Artist: Eleanor OakesTitle: Balancing Act 3, 2022Archival Inkjet Print from Salted Paper Print Made with Breastmilk11" x 15" (framed)   "milk and tears" is a series of salted paper prints speaking to my experience with new motherhood. Made from my own breastmilk, images of my son reference a legacy of classical sculpture and the intimacy of parenthood, and are complemented by still lifes of balanced blocks that serve as a metaphor for our societal ideal of trying to balance our work and home lives to “have it all.” While salt prints display a wide-range of color and tonal discrepancies, their variations here remind us that our bodies are not machines, but imperfect organisms. Using breastmilk as the salting solution in this work literally adds my own bodily labor to the print, and replicates the labor and sacrifice of parenthood. It also interjects a uniquely feminist narrative into this historical process. ABOUT THE ARTISTCCS Assistant Professor, Photography Eleanor Oakes is