This installation is about the so-called “mother and baby homes” that were established in the 19th and 20th centuries, where girls and women who became pregnant outside of marriage were incarcerated extrajudicially and forced to give birth in isolation and shame.
Originally developed by the Catholic church in Ireland, these institutions were exported to Canada, Australia, and the United States. Frequently the women and their children remained institutionalized and worked as unpaid labourers in "Magdalene Laundries," sometimes for the rest of their lives. Most of the babies were adopted out (or outright sold), or spent time in orphanages. At one such home in Tuam, County Galway, a child died nearly every two weeks between the mid-1920s and 1960s [source: BBC]. In 2017 the remains of nearly 800 infants were discovered in a septic tank on the grounds of this institution.
The weeds in the paintings reference these unwanted women and children. They are surrounded by a wound-bramble frame, referencing both the barbed wire fencing surrounding these extra-legal penal institutions, and also Christ's crown of thorns, as without exception these institutions were run by Christian organizations.