AOTEAROA Artist, mother, creative director Season gallery
The Stewardship of Beauty
The Stewardship of Beauty
Sans Woman
23 - 04 - 26
Curious how the notion of beauty has evolved over time, we speak to three stewards of beauty: art critic Su Wu, art educator Ruth O'Leary, and painter Jade Townsend.
The daily practices of these women quietly changing the narrative on beauty, supporting the shift in our perspective on what beauty means today.
In our conversation, we discover a kind of beauty that excludes hierarchy and, instead, incorporates emotion and intuitive reasoning.
Their words reveal how they carry the idea of beauty throughout their work and lives, and how they shape and share this with their community and children.
We're curious how the concept of beauty was initially presented to you, perhaps by a parent or a teacher?
It’s a really wild thing to look back on, because the beauty standards of the ’90s—when I was a kid soaking up popular culture and trends—felt so narrow and specific. My mum and her Vogue collection influenced me the most. She never explicitly defined beauty for me, but her aspirations became mine. I came to understand it as something polished and glamorous - luxury brands, perfect makeup, and women who seemed effortlessly put together. But beauty felt far away, like it only existed in magazines and advertisements, or in places like Rodeo Drive or the Hard Rock Cafe, and only belonged to certain people—models, pop stars, and actresses.
How is this idea evolving as you spend your years discovering and learning? Was there a specific moment that changed your perspective?
Yes—there have been many. It is evolving all the time. I remember a night pacing around the house, cradling my baby, unable to settle him or myself. The lights were off, and the moon outside was so bright I mistook her for a streetlight. Even though I was overwhelmed and sleep-deprived, I was captivated by the beauty of the moon. Her calm presence soothed me, and in the midst of stress—when I didn’t know what to do—it was the moon’s mothering nature that guided me.
My relationship with Hina, the Māori moon goddess, and her grace, consistency, and love has been a vital part of my family ever since that night. Plugging into beauty during times of exhaustion is a mother’s superpower.
How would you summarise 'beauty' today?
It’s actually very hard to define, isn’t it? But I recognise it in what lingers—art that holds you, people who draw you in, the moon and our inner tides. I see it in the way my children dazzle, in their ever-changing faces and āhua.
How do you convey a nuanced version of the concept of beauty to others—children, friends, community—within your sphere?
At Season, the gallery where I am Creative Director, I’m able to present other people’s ideas and ways of seeing. It’s less about presenting a fixed idea of beauty (or any concept) and more about making space for different perspectives to exist—especially those that are lesser known. Letting that work sit out in the world, on its own terms, feels important. Outside of that, it’s something I pass on in ordinary ways, especially with my children—through attention, through what I choose to notice and affirm in them, and by not separating beauty from domestic life.
Artwork by Jade Townsend, Milk Boy, 2025, acrylic on linen photographed by Samuel Hartnett, courtesy of Season.
Jade's show, From the Lion's Mouth is available until 14 June, 2026, Te Rehua o Sarjeant gallery, Whanganui.
AUSTRALIA Mother, writer, educator
We're curious how the concept of beauty was initially presented to you, perhaps by a parent or a teacher?
My earliest memories of beauty were presented to me by my older sister and my mother. It was a feminine initiation that I was drawn into unconsciously. The way my mother plaited her hair, the flowers she planted in our garden acted as a spell on me, the tenderness of my sister laying out her outfits at night on our bedroom floor, her little hands lovingly dressing her dolls. How did they become so graceful I wondered? Later on, I remember discovering a more heightened sense of beauty once I had entered the school system. I was fascinated by the gold jewellery my teacher wore, her synthetic skin coloured tights, high heels and perfume. A different kind of beauty but alluring nonetheless.
How is this idea evolving as you spend your years discovering and learning? Was there a specific moment that changed your perspective?
I have had 35 years and 6 months to observe beauty in all the forms presented to me and in which I have created and being able to see it is a privilege and a joy. Although it must be said that the tragedy of aging is realising all the beautiful things you didn’t appreciate at the time.
When I was a girl I wanted to be a performer and was signed to a casting agent and when I got my headshots the photographer asked me to smile and then when I smiled told me ‘don’t smile’. I didn’t smile in a photograph for the rest of my youth. I was always self conscious of my underbite as dentist after dentist tried to convince me to have my jaw broken even though I felt no pain. Now I can look back at the calamity of this situation – it is a shock to me now that there is so much cultural conditioning in the west for children across the gender spectrum to fit into a box of what beauty is. I hope I can teach my sons that beauty is endless and everywhere. Something that has changed is I feel now the hierarchies of beauty are not important to me. My compost pile is as beautiful to me as an exquisite painting. Of course beauty is so important but it really is everywhere, the soil is as beautiful as the flower that blooms from it.
How would you summarise beauty today?
For 7 years every month I have attended a women’s circle in the forest near where I live. When I cry in the circle I love to lean forward and let my tears fall on the forest floor and be absorbed into the great mother earth. The alchemy of a mother’s tears on the fertile soil is a beauty to behold. My children have taught me that there is beauty in the shadows of life as well as the things that sparkle.
How do you convey a nuanced version of the concept of beauty to others—children, friends, community—within your sphere?
As an artist I feel I am one of the lucky ones as my senses remain open to life and can drink in experiences that stay in my body until I can process them out through art making. A few years ago I had an abortion and all the creative energy of growing a child in my body never went away. I am reminded often of that soul whoever they are because so many beautiful things have come out of that loss. My children who don’t go to school are beauty hunters and I think I have taught them to be that way by making an effort to share beauty when I see it, make it or feel it.
Artwork by Ruth O.Leary, Bodywork 1 & 2, 2025, Marguerite 2026 archival inkjet prints.
MEXICO Art critic, writer, mother
We're curious how the concept of beauty was initially presented to you, perhaps by a parent or a teacher?
I don’t know what would have happened if I had not been taught early on to treat beauty as a philosophical pursuit, and not as a practical one. I studied philosophy of art and aesthetics in school, but I will probably never get over this formative impulse, to want to surround emotion with reason.
How is this idea evolving as you spend your years discovering and learning? Was there a specific moment that changed your perspective?
There’s a lot of training in taste, and that’s certainly a form of discipline and intelligence. And there’s a lot of training in rhetoric, too, in being convincing. But courage is something else, I don’t know if this is the word I mean exactly, but I didn’t recognise it at all until I got to see it up-close. It is like this quote I once read: a writer was asked when she knew she had talent, and she said something to the effect of like, I don’t care about writing beautiful lines. The important thing about writing well is not finding a voice, but finding the voice that is mine. Anyway, I am enjoying this new way of thinking: on trying to bend my life a little more to distinction, and not just taste.
Portrait photographed by Maureen Evans.
