Spiders - Arachne - Louis Bourgeois inspired

I recently attended the curator’s talk by Natasha Conland, on 27th September, 2025, at Auckland Art Gallery to accompany the current exhibition of Bourgeois works that have been privately owned and therefore relatively unseen, across the world; Louise Bourgeois: In Private View. I was struck by her use of the Spider to emulate the mother, Bourgeois’s mother, and the care, protection and support that she offered the family. I researched the family history and Louise Bourgeois’s career. I was particularly interested in an exhibition title, I Do, I Undo, I ReDo, as it referenced the process of making and unmaking. The exhibition was held at Tate Modern in London, in 2000, that I was around to see at the time as I was living and working in London.

Louise Bourgeois, Do, I Undo, I Redo, 2000, Unilever Series, Tate Britain.

I decided to use the imagery from Bourgeois’s bronze sculpture, Maman, 1999, as my interpretation of the spider that Arachne was changed into after her tapestry competition with Athena in Greek Mythology. Condemned to forever weave in the form of a spider, Arachne was saved from her attempt at suicide. Bourgeois’s reclamed the spider form to represent a female dedicated to nurture, protection and care.

Louise Bourgeois, Maman, 1999-2002, bronze, marble and stainless steel, 9300 x 8900 x 10200mm

Photograph: Marcus Leith and Andrew Dunkley, Tate Photography© The estate of Louise Bourgeois