Anonymous Women: Domestic Demise

Domestic Demise is a fictional, humorous, yet critical series about women, domestic identity, and the internal drama of a lone female in her imaginary home. The full-sized still-life series is created and photographed in the studio.

In my ongoing series titled, Anonymous Women: Domestic Demise, I am exploring the connection between a woman's identity and her home, specifically examining the term “housewife.” I create staged, full-size interior domestic rooms for the camera filled with decor and objects that surround a solitary female figure. The fictional scene uses a mannequin, the substitute ideal woman, who does not move, complain, or age. In the set, the woman is both enveloped by her environment while creating it- a dichotomy with both fulfilling and problematic consequences; both pathetic and humorous. In each image, I use color, design and humor to entice the viewer to relate to the woman’s plight and circumstance. The figure stands in for so many women, who silently make the home a place of comfort, safety and warmth, yet are unseen heroines of their own lives.

My photographs are metaphors for the interior lives of all women, represented here as the invisible suburban woman, often considered privileged but limited by outdated expectations, and largely ignored in today's identity politics. Though inspired by western consumer culture and the meaning we attach to material possessions, my female figures represent women from all backgrounds and cultures.