Anonymous Women

about Patty Carroll

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 4-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, Patty creates a dark and humorous game of hide-and-seek between her viewers and the Anonymous Woman.

In the first series, Heads, Patty made the photographs of heads covered by domestic objects or food over a period of about 6 months while living in London. Stripped of the accoutrements of her own culture led her to think about other shrouds of identity and portraiture of women. The second series, Draped, is about becoming the dwelling itself: experiencing the dichotomy of domesticity. The home is a place of comfort but can also be camouflage for individual identity when idealized decor becomes an obsession, or indication of position or status.

In Reconstructed, the woman becomes part of her excessive domestic trappings and activities. It is commentary on obsession with collecting, designing, and decorating, inviting hilarity and pathos in our relationship with “things.

In the latest narratives, Demise, the woman becomes the victim of her home to her downfall. Her activities, obsessions and objects are overwhelming her. Her home has become a site of tragedy. The scenes of her heartbreaking end are loosely inspired by several sources including the game of clue, where murder occurs in one of five rooms of the house: Dining Room, Kitchen, Hall, Conservatory, and Library.