Courtney Rile was the mother of a toddler when the emergence of COVID-19 triggered mandatory stay-at-home orders in March of 2020. The change, confusion, and uncertainty of that time mirrored the feelings she experienced during her “fourth trimester”—the twelve weeks in a mother and baby’s life after the baby is born. Rile turned to photography to help process both motherhood and grief, and to cope with the changes in the world around her. The resulting portraits of friends with young children, as well as portraits of her daughter and other images captured in Rile’s home, made during lockdown and its immediate aftermath, explore the passage of time and the duality of inward and outward looking.

Separating birth from death is impossible. Shortly before Rile began this series, when her daughter was in her actual fourth trimester, she witnessed the death of a loved one. Since that time, Rile has witnessed more death, an experience shared by many during the COVID quarantine. Her daughter is now six years old, and these photographs are even more meaningful because they carry the grief of the COVID-19 pandemic, the grief of collective loss, and the grief inherent in the passage of time.

-Text from Courtney Rile: Moments in Between
January 25 – March 30, 2025
Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY
Steffi Chappell, Director of Curatorial Affairs
Garth Johnson, Curator of Ceramics

https://everson.org/explore/current-exhibitions/moments-in-between/