In recent years, Patty Carroll (b. 1946, Chicago, Illinois) has explored the traditional and contemporary “housewife” role, by creating scenes of exaggerated chaos that often consumes the subject, which is a woman. Pots and pans, shoes and flowers, excessively colorful drapery, cakes and pies, 1950’s furniture and decorative objects overwhelm the female subject in the scene. The series is appropriately titled, Anonymous Women: Domestic Demise. Patty states, “She is both a victim of her obsessions, activities and circumstances as well as the invisible creator of such; both satisfying and problematic, pathetic and humorous.”
The images are mostly humorous, but sometimes terrifying. Overall, we reflect on the past and current defined roles of the Suburban woman.
