UAL graduate Rayvenn Shaleigha D'Clark unveils London's first ever postpartum statue.

Throughout October, UAL graduate and digital sculptor Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark displayed Mother Vérité - London’s first ever postpartum statue in Marylebone’s Portman Square.

Rayven studied a Foundation at Central Saint Martins and then went on to Chelsea College of Arts to study BA (Hons) and then MA in Fine Art. In 2004, she also studied an MA in Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication. She currently teaches as an Associate Lecturer at London College of Fashion.

Standing 7-feet-tall in bronze, the figure is modelled on real women’s postpartum journey, created to ‘capture every scar, curve and crease.’

In preparation for this piece, Rayvenn interviewed and scanned a diverse group of 40 postpartum women combining live casting and 3D rendering techniques to create a piece of work that capture the reality and truth of early motherhood and celebrates the maternal body as it really is, not as culture has chosen to idealise it.

“Motherhood is at once everyday and extraordinary,” says Rayvenn. “By honouring the postpartum body, we’re recognising the courage of women everywhere.”

Interviewed by magazine Birthbabe, Rayvenn, spoke about the intention behind the sculpture and why it felt so important to depict an authentic version of a woman’s naked body postpartum.

“We wanted to present the female form in its natural state’, Rayvenn states. “To reclaim a narrative where nudity isn’t about objectification.”

For Rayvenn, Mother Vérité continues her artistic mission of making the invisible visible. “I want to commemorate the hidden figures, the women whose stories are not told, whose bodies are not seen, whose work is undervalued”, she says.

Living in a world where the postpartum bodies that ‘bounced back’ are celebrated, Mother Vérité offers something different – a mirror reflecting the reality of birth and recovery.

The sculpture is now preparing to go on tour, beyond London and for the world to see. The hope that Rayvenn has for Mother Vérité is simply that “She offers a moment of reflection, a chance to see the mother and to let her be seen.”