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You don't say how the paintings came to be hung around your place. Before your mother died? After? Some of each?, probably. How much was she in on them being there? and how much did you put them up after she died so you could have her around? so to speak. Just trying to get the flavor of things.
Our unhappiness has such weird ways of stating things to us. You say, "Aesthetics matter so much to me ('more than your own mother'...) You might have said that aesthetics matter so much to you, more than your mother's aesthetics do.
Maybe it's too oblique, but I remember a woman I knew (not intimately) years ago who was a potter and sculptor. Her place was filled with her work in a way that over-whelmed the environment. Fair enough for a working artist wanting to be in the midst of their work, but the place had the air of her museum to her; and as well that she put it all there because there wasn't much of her. Surrounding and engulfing; visually very loud, just by the amount of it, not by what was portrayed. The work itself wasn't to my taste but was certainly competent.
With your mother's work, you can fairly quickly take it all down and tuck it away somewere and wander around in your space for a while and see what it's like. Or take down one room's-worth. You can always put it back up.
It's your turf. Parents have a place, but it's your life. That's as it should be. My mother painted. She's gone now. We weren't that close; or, there were strong feelings but we weren't that close. All I have up of hers is a little watercolor, from before she hit her stride, of some houses on a Roman hillside, close up. Roof lines, walls. Nice little thing. The glass broke a few years back when it dropped, and I haven't fixed it. A bit of mat is torn.
Best,
Monty
(more, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston"
