My work deals with the unrealistically high expectations placed on women by a society that is preoccupied with outward perfection, specifically as it relates to domesticity and motherhood, but ignores the internal needs and desires of women themselves. As a wife and mother living in the suburbs with two young children, I know firsthand how harrowing it can be to try to live up to the unobtainable level of perfection demanded by our social-media-obsessed society.
No longer are we merely bombarded by mass media images of attractive, smiling, jet-setting celebrity mothers telling us their happiest moments are spent raising their perfect children in their perfect spotless mansions, even as their nannies, housekeepers, dietitians, and chefs do all the real work. Now we also have similar messages continually broadcast from our own families and friends constantly at our fingertips. How is it that everyone’s life is perfect but not our own? Why are we the only ones living boring lives in our dirty houses with bratty children and cellulite?
In direct opposition to this imposed perfection, I have created my photographic series Wife, Mother, Woman. For this series, I spend several hours at a time with women and their families in their homes or places of business and chronicle their interactions with the goal of capturing real moments in the lives of real women. None of the images in the series are planned or staged. I simply strive to be a forgotten presence, spending enough time with the families for them to act as they would if no one was looking. The work does not shy away from the reality of siblings fighting, dirty dishes in the sink, trash on the floor, and mothers pushing junk food and electronics at their children just to get a moment’s peace. Through the imaging of dozens of mothers, I emphasize the point that social media “realities” aren’t real. What women often see as their own personal struggles are actually much more common and universal than they think, and much more real than the perfectly coiffed woman in designer clothes with a gorgeous husband, two angelic children, and a dog in tow.
