Bubly Barna: Weaving the Invisible Strength of Motherhood Through Art

Bubly Barna is a graduate student at the Miami University College of Arts and Sciences pursuing her second Master of Fine Art. She is a notable artist on the rise, with captivating work that considers the intertwined realities of motherhood, society's expectations, and a woman's unyielding spirit. As an alum of the University of Dhaka's Faculty of Fine Arts, Bubly is trained in painting and collage, but she takes a unique approach by incorporating stitching into her narratives, providing a fresh perspective to her stories that showcase women's lived realities.

Barna's art begins with mothering, which profoundly changes Bubly's life. It revealed the unspoken aspects of emotionally volatile shifts and the quiet endurance charged on each mother. Her stitches series serves as an intimate yet poignant personal account of this story. The soft, misshapen, stuffed silhouettes of sculptural dolls embody the attachment distortion and deep emotional confusion many mothers face, along with the intimate bond that characterizes mother-child relationships. These figures illustrate an emotional worldview of labor that lies beneath the surface where day-to-day reality masks the multifaceted complexity of life.

Traditionally viewed as "women's work," stitching holds a metaphorical power in Bubly's art. Each stitch, minute and largely unnoticed, serves as an emotional outlet, rebuilding the identity of a mother. The soft greys and earth tones, in addition to gold, pink, and white, form muted color palettes that reflect the love and hope sustaining mothers and the societal tension constraining them. This equilibrium exemplifies the fragility woven into her materials: mothers' enduring struggle between their personal desires and those imposed upon them.

Bubly depicts not only a personal story; she addresses deep-rooted gender stereotypes and social expectations that transcend her history. She uses her artistic voice to challenge and undermine the romanticized boundaries of women's roles, amplifying the silenced narratives of maternal labor and maternal fortitude. Bubly reclaims the strength and beauty of invisibility, inviting the audience to contemplate the contemporary reality of womanhood and motherhood.

Bubly is now in the US and is deeply connected to her Bangladeshi roots. She participates in exhibitions in the local Bangladeshi art community while nurturing a global perspective. Through her exhibitions and creative work, she engages in dialogues concerning care and sacrifice and their impact on gender and identity. Bubly Barna's artwork underscores the intricate, fragile, and profoundly powerful connections that intertwine a mother and her child.

Concept Note on the Artwork

Becoming a mother was a massive shift for me, one that brought with it a deeper understanding of the unspoken struggles, emotional and hormonal upheavals, and the quiet strength that is expected of women in the role of a mother. It also brought to the forefront the tension between love and exhaustion, identity and sacrifice, beauty and self-perception. The weight of these dualities is a constant presence in my work. My stitching series is a profoundly personal documentation of my journey through the physical and emotional transformations of motherhood. The fragile, stuffed, deformed, and silhouette figures in the works symbolize emotional disorientation and exhaustion, attachments in the mother-child relationship, and the struggle to become a mother, which is often invisible in the daily life of a mother.

The act of stitching, traditionally seen as "women's work," not only highlights the undervaluation of maternal labour but also serves as a powerful metaphor for the enduring bond between mother and child—woven together through care, sacrifice, and love.

Each stitch represents a small, unseen effort, a moment of emotional release, a piece of the puzzle that is the mother's identity. The fragility embedded in the materials mirrors the delicate balance mothers must maintain between their own needs and the demands placed on them. Through these works, I aim to provoke a conversation about the hidden labour of motherhood, the societal expectations that define mothers' roles, and the quiet, enduring strength that is often required to navigate both.

I do not deny the chauvinistic world I know; neither do I accept its constraints. Instead, I use my art to question, challenge, and subvert these limitations, seeking to give voice to the untold stories of women and mothers, reclaim the quiet strength and beauty of being invisible within these roles, and offer a space for reflection on what it means to be a woman/mother in today's world.