Mark the Midwife
Jennifer D’Arcy
Mark the Midwife [detail] 2024
Portrait of Mark Beaves
Oil on canvas
91 x 122 cm
About the Artwork
This portrait was made to acknowledge the quiet responsibility carried by those who work to keep babies safe. Mark Beaves is shown against a projected fetal heart rate tracing. The data moves across his body, suggesting how deeply his professional role is embedded in who he is, while his calm, open stance reflects the steadiness required in moments of clinical uncertainty.
I am a midwife, and Mark is my manager. He has managed the Fetal Surveillance Education Program since its inception in 2003. I selected Mark because of his lasting contribution to maternal and fetal health and his influence on my own practice. Through education and mentorship, he has empowered thousands of clinicians to recognise risk and act with confidence. Having worked with Mark for over a decade, I wanted this portrait to honour his legacy and the unseen labour, vigilance, and compassion that underpin the safe delivery of a child.
About the Artist
Jennifer D’Arcy is a Melbourne-based midwife and artist who has made art from an early age. She studied drawing, painting, and sculpture at Monash University and is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with First Class Honours. Portraiture is central to Jennifer’s multidisciplinary practice, unified by strong representational detail and expressive use of colour.
Her work is grounded in observation and focuses on the human experience, particularly responsibility, care, and psychological presence. Through portraiture, she explores how identity is shaped by lived experience and quiet, defining moments. Jennifer has exhibited nationally and internationally, and recently completed a summer residency at the New York Academy of Art. She has been a finalist in the Salon des Refusés, the Lester Prize, the Darling Portrait Prize, and the National Emerging Art Prize.