Jane McCrae’s photography breathes life into the processing of giving birth.
Welcome to Mamamia’s art endeavour, the Voulez-Vous Project. Every week we celebrate emerging artists, designers, illustrators, creators and women who knit using their vaginas. (Kidding. Maybe.) Our aim: to help the internet become a slightly more beautiful, captivating, or thought-provoking place by making art accessible.
To find out more about the Voulez-Vous project, click here. Click here to see all the previous Voulez-Vous posts.
Raw. Honest. Powerful. Those are three words to describe Jane McCrae’s photography. She encapsulates nature with new life and the result is something that really has to be seen to be believed.
Her series, which shows off birth in a way that is rarely seen, was created through many conversations with a pregnant friend. McCrae photographed her friend, Natalia, through the birth of her first child, and did the same with her second.
McCrae’s talent breathes life into the images while her subjects are literally bringing new life into the world.
She photographs pregnancy through all its stages, and mixes nature and water with the process of birth. Her images, if you’re not used to the process of birth, are confronting – but in way that opens you up to the beauty that you wouldn’t otherwise see.
Related: “I don’t have the patience to let paint dry.”
McCrae photograph encompasses everything a new mother would feel in that moment – happiness, joy, pain, pride, awe, relief. The emotions are written on their faces and captured beautifully in colour and life within her photographs.
Click through the gallery below to see more examples of McCrae’s work. You can find McCrae’s website by clicking here, and her Facebook by clicking here.
Do you know an artist (or are YOU an artist) who creates beautiful or thought-provoking work and whom you think should be featured on Mamamia’s Voulez-Vous Project? Send an email to caitlin.stower@mamamia.com.au.
Top Comments
I love how grumpy newborns look. Divine
Yes they are beautiful images... of mostly home births. Which mamamia disapproves of. So which is it beautiful home births or dangerous home births?
I dont think its about disapproving of home births, its about having good pre natal care, knowing the risks, having qualified people to assist you and accepting that you may need to have a hospital birth if things dont go to plan. The stories on this site about homebirths that have gone wrong were (from memory) women that didnt have qualified midwives, or were high risk, or hadnt had adequate pre natal care.
You can still have beautiful images of something, even if it's not the medically safest routine. Surely people's minds are so simplistic that they can't grasp that?
I didn't see many home births in there at all.