By Anna Zhila
A woman visited the finale of Simmi Sandhu's first 50-day painting series with her mum on Mother's Day 2025. A year later her mum had died, and she wrote to the artist wanting another Mother Moon as a way of grieving. One painting from the series had been made on the exact date, a year before, that matched her mum's passing, and it was still available. She chose that one.
The painting belongs to the group Sandhu made to honour mothers who are no longer with us. The date, which had been simply a record of the day she painted it, took on a meaning for the woman who chose it. "It made me realise that the dates attached to the Mother Moons can take on their own significance too, for the people who connect with them," Sandhu wrote to us.
A series that began with one canvas
Mother Moon began with a single painting, made in February 2024. Sandhu was grieving her own mum, and she has described how looking at the night sky gave her comfort and a sense of connection. The original is acrylic on canvas, 40cm by 30cm, painted in her mum's favourite lilacs, pinks and purples, the colours chosen for her funeral and flowers.
Almost exactly a year later she decided to paint a new Mother Moon every day until Mother's Day. When she counted the days, there were exactly fifty. The paintings run from 9 February to 30 March 2025, and each canvas was signed and dated on the reverse as it was finished. The backs of the paintings are, in effect, a daily log.
The fifty fall into five groups of ten: mothers who are no longer with us; longing for motherhood, which includes adoption as well as fertility struggles; fertility, trust and the body, covering IVF, pregnancy loss and miscarriage; motherhood and matrescence; and matriarchs and the Divine Feminine, where the subject widens to lineage, ancestral wisdom and the women who hold families and stories across generations.
Some of the small decisions behind individual canvases are recorded. Mother Moon 6 was painted on Valentine's Day, with two intertwined gold hearts. Mother Moon 14 includes shooting stars and meteorites because a follower, asked what should be added to a Mother Moon, suggested them. Mother Moon 18, about taking a pregnancy test after years of hoping, uses a darker palette of black, yellow and orange. Mother Moon 28 was made for International Women's Day. As the series went on, Sandhu began to see eggs and ovums inside the moons, a movement between the cosmos and the body that she says she had not consciously planned.
The Divine Feminine
The Divine Feminine: An Immersive Art & Wellbeing Experience was Sandhu's solo exhibition at Great Wood Community Hall in Upper Tean, in the Staffordshire Moorlands, from 21 to 27 September 2026. It formed part of the hall's arts programme, and Sandhu says her proposal was selected by the council committee.
The exhibition included a community artwork, a collaborative piece of expressive mark making made with women who came along.
The photographs from the exhibition show the women adding to the community piece, close-ups of hands painting, and the artist working alongside them. Those published here were taken by Sarah Peart of Optical Designs. The women pictured have agreed to the photographs being used publicly, including in publications.
What visitors have told her
The stories visitors bring have shaped how Sandhu talks about the work. Women have told her about the loss of adult children, adoption journeys that did not go ahead, pregnancy and miscarriage, and their own fertility struggles. "I've felt a real sense of responsibility to represent women's experiences honestly and sensitively through my art," she wrote.
That is why the adoption strand matters to her. She wanted Mother Moon to acknowledge that there are many different journeys into motherhood, not only biological ones. In her words: "Mother Moon isn't about one single experience of motherhood, but the many different ways we can experience longing, love, loss and connection."
Where to see it
Mother Moon 50, painted on Mother's Day 2025 in yellows, oranges, pinks and purples, is on show at Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme, in an exhibition titled Honouring Our Communities. It is part of Kwanzaa Collective UK's 27 Emotions programme and the Black History Month programme, and runs from 21 September to 8 November 2026.
More of Simmi Sandhu's work is at simmisandhu.com.
