Mother and Child (responses to the Boyd Collection)

Images of the close physical relationship between mothers and their developing children informed by prenatal histology. Eight canvases 40cm x 40cm Lazertransfer drawings and histology In October 2015 Graham Burton director of The Centre for Trophoblast Research, Cambridge University kindly allowed me access to a microscope, bench space and a set of slides known as The Boyd Collection. In the 1950's Professor JD Boyd author of two classic monographs, The Human Placenta and Human Embryology asked local pathologists to forward on to him any placental specimens that were suitable for his anatomical and histological studies. A process that is not possible today. In selecting the source of my images I have concentrated on the part of the slide where the maternal uterine wall is in close proximity with the placental tissue of the baby. Mother and baby will never be so close again. Coincidentally a couple of weeks after this work was finally done and experimentally hung on mu studio wall, grandson number three arrived.