Amber Hearn’s latest body of work is a series of self-portraits woven into landscapes that capture the anticipation of the arrival of her daughter, speaking to both the emotional and physical shifts within the body. The works highlight the complexities of labour and childbirth, whilst encapsulating the symbiotic relationship between the pain and beauty of that experience.

The River In Me is a self-portrait woven into a landscape that captures the emotional and physical shifts of pregnancy and childbirth. The piece reflects both the fluidity and turbulence of this transformative experience, drawing parallels between the body and the river/water as forces of change, growth, and renewal.

Says Amber of this work, “In the moments before my daughter’s birth, I felt a deep sense of being carried along by something larger than myself, like a river. My body was in constant motion, yet I was anchored to this powerful current, both at the mercy of its flow and in control of it. There was a quiet knowing that I was about to emerge, to give way to the life that had been growing inside me.”

The work merges the organic lines of the human body with the raw beauty of the landscape, using fluid brushstrokes to evoke the sense of movement and water. The horizon line serves as a boundary between the private world of the self and the open space of the outside, marking the threshold between the internal and the external, the personal and the universal.