3rd place
bronze star award
Patty Carroll
united states 
title
Anonymous Women: Reconstructed
In the previous photographic series, “Anonymous Women: Draped,” a lone woman is hidden in a draped vignette with an occasional domestic prop or piece of furniture, where she performs domestic trickery. In this ensuing series, “Anonymous Women: Reconstructed,” the woman becomes part of her excessive domestic trappings and activities. “Reconstructed” is commentary on obsession with collecting, designing, and decorating, inviting hilarity and pathos in our relationship with “things.” The photographs are life-size installations made in the studio using household objects as subject matter. A mannequin substitutes for the woman, where camouflage and anonymity reaches its logical conclusion of extreme absurdity, where the woman perpetually disappears into the artifice and a visual overload of colors and patterns of her environment. Finding the anonymous woman in the chaos becomes an interactive scavenger hunt. The final outcome is a photograph and/or a short video. https://vimeo.com/114394556.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago provides the basis of all of my work, and I continually question, marvel, and try to come to terms with the experience. It was time when suburban life was falsely idealized; the home was a place of perfection and harmony, free from harsh realities, without crime, or messy interiors, where everyone’s drapes and sofa matched, where people were normal, without dark little secrets. It was at time when the “woman’s place was in the home.” I am photographically creating worlds that debunk, critique and satirize these myths of claustrophobic perfection.
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entry description
The subject is the merging of woman and home.In the previous photographic series, “Anonymous Women: Draped,” a lone woman is hidden in a draped vignette with an occasional domestic prop or piece of furniture, where she performs domestic trickery. In this ensuing series, “Anonymous Women: Reconstructed,” the woman becomes part of her excessive domestic trappings and activities. “Reconstructed” is commentary on obsession with collecting, designing, and decorating, inviting hilarity and pathos in our relationship with “things.” The photographs are life-size installations made in the studio using household objects as subject matter. A mannequin substitutes for the woman, where camouflage and anonymity reaches its logical conclusion of extreme absurdity, where the woman perpetually disappears into the artifice and a visual overload of colors and patterns of her environment. Finding the anonymous woman in the chaos becomes an interactive scavenger hunt. The final outcome is a photograph and/or a short video. https://vimeo.com/114394556.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago provides the basis of all of my work, and I continually question, marvel, and try to come to terms with the experience. It was time when suburban life was falsely idealized; the home was a place of perfection and harmony, free from harsh realities, without crime, or messy interiors, where everyone’s drapes and sofa matched, where people were normal, without dark little secrets. It was at time when the “woman’s place was in the home.” I am photographically creating worlds that debunk, critique and satirize these myths of claustrophobic perfection.
about the photographer
Patty Carroll has been known for her use of highly intense, saturated color photographs since the 1970’s. Her most recent project, “Anonymous Women,” consists of a 3-part series of studio installations made for the camera, addressing women and their complicated relationships with domesticity. By camouflaging the figure in drapery and/or domestic objects, Carroll creates a dark and humorous game of hide-and-seek between her viewers and the Anonymous Woman. The photographs are exhibited in large scale and were published as a monograph in 2016 by Daylight Books, and as "Domestic Demise" in 2020 by Ain't Bad Books. The Anonymous Woman series has been exhibited internationally and has won multiple awards including Carroll being acknowledged as one of Photolucida’s “Top 50” in 2104 and 2017. Her work has been featured in prestigious blogs and international magazines such as the Huffington Post, The Cut, Ain’t Bad Magazine, and BJP in Britain. Her work has been shown internationally in many one-person exhibits in China and Europe, as well as the USA. (White Box Museum, Beijing, Art Institute of Chicago, Blue Star, San Antonio, Royal Photographic Society, Bath, England, among others.) After teaching photography for many years, Carroll has enthusiastically returned to the studio in order to delight viewers with her playful critique of home and excess. Please see website for full biography.back to gallery
