Art, Poetry and Motherhood: Book launch and exhibition by Brussels artist Mimi Kunz

In her new book Mother Tongue, Brussels-based artist and poet Mimi Kunz vividly recounts the story of her daughter’s birth and first year of life.

As she shares her experience of being a young mother and her moments of marvel, fear, and laughter, a revelation occurs. The body of mother and child are discovered as our first language, our mother tongue. This was the starting point for a tale of balancing motherhood with a dedication to art.

I initially discovered her visual work online, but saw it for the first time live at the Something Beautiful Festival at LaVallée arts hub in 2023. Kunz was sitting on the floor with paper in front of her, the movements of a dancer inspiring a small world on each cream coloured page.

Her small gestures expressed so much in one flick of a perfect brush stroke. A smile slowly lifts each corner of your lips, while a brief movement of the eye takes in the bigger picture of each work. A mother and daughter dancing, a group of people discussing while moving in unison, a lone figure on a beach …

Walking through the exhibition, I found a selection of her work on a wall. Resting my eyes for an instant on the painting, small things registered such as a curved line, a single dot. But the longer you fixate on a piece, the more alive it becomes, until you find yourself inside the image and becoming yourself a mother dancing with her baby. Any blurred lines between the viewer and the artwork instantly disappear.

Mother Tongue is Kunz’s first published collection of poetry and painting. It is a happy, gentle and inspired book in which the poetry travels instantly through your imagination. Her words transport you mostly to destinations of new encounters and the novel awareness of situations.

A mother rediscovering the world via the exploration of her daughter reminds us of the first steps in life that we have long forgotten. Why do we clap when someone performs? How do we first stand upright when learning to walk? At the end of a midnight breastfeeding session, Kunz imagines her daughter’s entire future in a fleeting instant.

“You skipping off to play
walking with your love
waving, going overseas
building your home
a new family

And it makes me happy to know that a tiny part of me
the memory of a song I sang
the shape of my toe
will be there.”

The lyrical words in the poems are composed in the shape of a moving form. Funambule (French for tightrope walker) is an evocative account of watching a little person take off and fumble through first steps. This book is recommended for its exploration of the soul, mind and all that art invokes at the tip of an ink filled brush.

Mother Tongue by Mimi Kunz, published in November 2024 (The Kyoudai Press) is available at Librebooks, Peinture Fraiche and online.

Photo: Exhibition image of Mimi Kunz painting ©Melanie Peduzzi