The desire to curate our homes is directly linked to the ways in which it can become a mirror. Our sense of self is tied directly to the objects we surround ourselves with. In Patty Carroll’s photographs she parodies the struggle showcasing the sheer volume of what one might choose to define an identity. In each image, anonymous women are surrounded by the things that make up their interior portraits, covered in everything from rotary dial telephones, vintage lamps, exotic plants, and other objects of an idealized domestic lifestyle. These outward associations, through the stuff we acquire, often make up our constructed sense of self. However, in these spaces exists an ongoing question of whether or not these figures are at their most secure or most vulnerable.
In Sears Catalogue a female figure hidden beneath her collection of early 1950s patterned drapery focuses on the dilemma that modern women face: are we comfortable or uncomfortable with our need to collect and consume? One might assume a sense of control through the accumulation of goods, but that concept of plenty can be flawed and overwhelming. Both a site of conflict and command, the woman in Sears Catalogue flips through the pages in search of what else her imagined home needs, manifesting the desire to consume.
The sense of complete object takeover is showcased in Seventy. The fine line that exists between hoarder and collector is a matter of perception. Hemmed in by her garish interior decor choices of the 1970s, complete with a bust of Elvis, the figure echoes the quirky time capsule of Graceland. While these masked figures that recur in Carroll’s photographs are seemingly docile, in works like Jungly the subject is positioned with a sense of authority in her space, suggesting an awareness of the viewer and a desire to be seen in this way. The titles themselves highlight the artist’s sense of humor playing on both the objects that surround the figures and ideas of an overgrown time or place.
Carroll’s work often toes the line of the absurd as she pushes these interior portraits to their eccentric limit. There comes a point where this desire to collect fragments of oneself through objects becomes disorienting. As color is more muted in images like Sweepy the psychological effect of the space becomes much more apparent. The figure is surrounded by a riot of swirling and convex black and white patterns. The dizzying effect of this layering forces the space to expand and flatten depending on the object in focus.
Sweepy is the point at which Carroll takes the metaphor of cloaking one’s identity through a home or collection of things to a different and more elaborate level than the more abstract draped works. These themes allow for Carroll to push to the point of breakage. Does the accumulation of objects reflect an ideal version of a self, or become more of a portrait than the figure that exists within it? As the women disappear completely cloaked in these interior landscapes, one can see something is slightly awry. Within these environments, the women are the most themselves and simultaneously camouflaged.
– Melaney Mitchell