In her work, Helen Verhoeven plays with displays of power, sexuality and tradition in paintings. In Cosmic Nude 2, there are various references to the struggle being a woman and an artist brings with it. The reclining female figure is a contemporary interpretation of Olympia, a famous 19th-century painting by French painter Edouard Manet. But her seemingly pregnant, naked body is being groped while she seems to have little control over it. Behind her, visible through the open window, is the Tate Modern, a famous museum with high walls and a low percentage of female artists in its collection. Which ambitions are artist-mothers allowed to have? [text 2025]