My Love [The woman who traded her baby for honey] 2018

Pieter Henket made this photograph, “My Love [The woman who traded her baby for honey]”, in 2012. Isn’t it beautiful? A figure stands in a field, her hands clasped around a bundle, her expression gentle but unreadable, a basket on her back, and two termite mounds in the background, anchoring her to the landscape. I wonder what was going through Henket's mind, what he wanted to transmit, and what he felt about this figure? It feels like a conversation across cultures, an attempt to understand something about how people live and survive. The palette is muted, mostly greens and browns, as though the artist is aiming for something natural, capturing a fleeting moment in time. But of course, every gesture is deliberate. This piece feels connected to a long history of portraiture, but it also suggests something about the exchange between people – what we offer each other, and what we lose along the way. It’s this exchange that gives the work its emotional heft.