Latina artist Fay Ray explores childbirth and the postpartum condition

Long Beach’s The Compound is a newish non-profit art center with a wellness focus, a soaring exhibition space, restaurant and contemplative courtyard - think a mini-Hauser and Wirth gallery. Latina artist Fay Ray’s first solo exhibition here dispels the notion of the organization working within a curatorial safe zone with a pell-mell leap into emotional territory. It’s also a humbling, if edifying subject for this male reviewer. 

The exhibition’s title, “Puerperal”, refers to the period during or relating to about six weeks after childbirth. Says Ray, “The intent of this exhibition is to open a dialogue about the period of childbirth that is recognized as the ‘fourth trimester’—or postpartum. Once you have a child, I believe you are postpartum from that point forward until death…” 

Impacts of this medical state can be significant, encompassing a wide range of physical and emotional transformations as the body recovers from pregnancy and childbirth. Changes can range from temporary discomforts like fatigue and afterpains, but there are often significant issues such as depression, vaginal bleeding, hair loss and potential long-term effects on physical function. 

In Latin American cultures, the postpartum concept of “La cuarentena,” (the quarantine), refers to a forty-day post birth healing period. Physical and emotional recovery, as well as support from family and community members are of paramount importance. Conversely, contemporary Western culture tends to promote recovery with a shorter timeline and an emphasis on a medicalized approach. It’s territory that has been explored by artists Judy Chicago’s “Birth Project”, 1980-85, and Camille Henrot’s examinations of the postpartum body.

Ray’s exhibition presents a series of suspended aluminum and static ceramic sculptures, ink-jet prints, and commissioned outdoor sculptures. The large, flat abstract aluminum shapes are often embedded with onyx or marble, serving as metaphors for maternal states. Given the dramatic scale of the works and their intent, the overall impression is somewhat languid - yet it’s an earnest deployment of forms representing exigent cyphers of a woman’s evolving post-childbirth conditions. The aluminum forms are also references to her family’s trucking business – an enterprise she was surrounded with as a child. And, as a pragmatic matter – the material reflects a sensible choice with three small children in her home, the forms resist accidental bumps and dings. 

According to Fay, “Feelings and Systems, 2024”, made of aluminum and stainless steel, represents, “borrowed language from therapy. I love dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, the subconscious, tricking the mind, and understanding the mind…this piece is about love and order and harmony and strength, control and endlessness.” Similarly, “Portal, 2024”,composed of large metal triangular sheets, creates an imposing if pensive work that casts a diamond reflection.  

But the tour-de-force installation here is a small grouping of porcelain sculptures, titled “For Knowing and Being, 2025” – and the entire assemblage is a startling material contrast to the large aluminum sculptures. Each work, 12-inch figures of embracing mothers and their children, with references to the Pietà, are emotionally fraught, poignant and ambiguous. Rey views the postpartum experience as contiguous and life-altering and asks us to consider children rearing and its emotional repercussions. 

Importantly, the exhibit eschews an overtly romanticized and often stigmatizing view of parenting and tacitly rejects the notion that motherhood and an artistic career practice are mutually exclusive - yet persisting as a recurring subject of debate. Ultimately, the exhibition’s melding of materials with the psychological potencies of motherhood and physical postpartum regeneration are emotionally moving and thought-provoking, something which few exhibitions achieve.