The Woman in the Wall

A collage series combining portraits of modern women (and girls) with wallpaper, based a feminist short story.

This series is based on the 19th century short story, The Yellow Wallpaper.  In the story, the author describes a mother’s descent into madness. She rips wallpaper to free a woman she believes is trapped inside the wall. In my images, the girls and women often seem tangled amidst the flowers, geometry, and toile. 

I began constructing these photographs several years ago when the political landscape took a dramatic shift.  I watched the paradigm of normalcy give way to disease, populism, and the subversion of truth. Covid gave me a new appreciation of interiors, both domestic and psychological.  Soon, my three daughters began to leave the house. They entered a world with greater opportunity, yet many more constraints.

Although what is in the images may feel suffocating, the techniques I used to create them was anything but. I experimented with the materiality of printmaking, and delved into museum archives, as well as my own.  I perused historic patterns and illustrations.  If I couldn’t leave the house at least my mind could wander. 

In these images, I wanted to merge the past with the present. Each collage includes a portrait I have made. I wonder what these young women have inherited from those that came before? And what the historical women in these photographs— if they could speak — would say.