It traverses the "life cycle" of a mother, from matrescence (the transition to motherhood) through to the giving of care, making of magic and and on to loss and grief.Telling the story of motherhood through the NGV collection has given the exhibition a distinctly local framing."There's been a few exhibitions on motherhood launched overseas and we were thinking about that in an NGV context and what we could add Every person that we've walked through says 'oh, this reminds me of my family'."But the exhibition doesn't satisfy itself with the personal, thrumming throughout with the political.It consistently asks us to consider maternal aesthetics more deeply: which images reinforce tight and unrelenting roles of mother and which give carers more room to be fully realised humans? How could art ever reflect the immensity of the task that is being a mother?As someone currently on maternity leave, writing this piece with a squirming infant on my lap, it was a relief to see a grand venue such as the Ian Potter Centre give itself over to these questions — and to see how the long thread that connects all mothers could be woven in this time and place.Mother is at the NGV until July 12.