Is a Spanish artist and photographer currently based in Germany, whose evocative work delves into the intricacies of motherhood, identity, and belonging. Her photographic journey began during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period marked by profound personal transformation and displacement. As a new mother and migrant, Isa turned to photography as a therapeutic outlet, capturing the intimate, fleeting moments of everyday life. Her series Birthmark explores the deep emotional landscapes of early motherhood, intertwining themes of nostalgia, magic, and the search for home. Isa’s work is characterized by its raw honesty and tender portrayal of the maternal experience, offering a unique perspective that challenges traditional representations. Through her lens, Isa Rus creates a visual narrative that is both deeply personal and universally relatable, inviting viewers to connect with the beauty and complexity of the human condition.
The exhibition Birthmark by Spanish photographer Isa Rus marks the sixth chapter of Homecoming, the exhibition cycle dedicated to contemporary photography, conceived by Irene Alison and curated by Irene Alison and Paolo Cagnacci. The event is organized in collaboration with Forma Edizioni and Associazione InFoto Firenze, with the support of Gruppo AF and Banca Ifigest. There is a carnal, primal dimension to the idea of “home” that Isa Rus explores in her work—a home as body, as breast, as root, as mother. The title Birthmark evokes not only the literal sign of birth—what we commonly refer to as a “mark”… “birthmark”—but also the profound transformation that comes with motherhood. “This project,” says Rus, “reflects a blend of personal and universal experiences, capturing the raw and intimate moments of motherhood and the deep connections we form with our surroundings and the people we love.”
The maternal body—transformed by pregnancy, inhabited by the newborn, burdened by expectations and judgments—has long been the site of a quiet struggle. In Rus’s images, however, it is portrayed in a state of complete freedom and communion with nature, to the point of dissolving into the landscape. Examined through an intergenerational lens, layered with the idea of Patria (Rus emigrated from Spain to Germany, and her work also reflects the nostalgia of her migrant condition), and intertwined with natural elements, the motherhood she portrays resists stereotypes and defies visual clichés or cultural constructs.
Her work aligns with the trajectory of the mother gaze—a visual inquiry that seeks to offer an authentic representation of motherhood, moving away from the flat, iconic depictions of mothers to reveal their complexities, contradictions, and shadows. Isa Rus photographs other mothers to understand who and what she herself has become through the metamorphosis of having a child. This act of reflection reads as both a poetic and political reclamation: of one’s identity, of one’s body, of one’s condition, and of one’s narrative.
