Social Criticism in Laurie Simmons Early Color Interiors

The Pictures generation of artists in the 1970s and 80s was marked by a rejection of the legacy of the male-dominated world of painting by a new generation of artists working with photography, video and performance art. The desire to find a new aesthetic that suited the changing culture of the U.S. led many artists to express themselves using the immediate nature of photography. The most influential members of this group were women concerned with questioning conventional representations of gender in the media and film. Laurie Simmons’ early photography was an exploration of societal expectations about women’s roles. Her Early Color Interiors photographs (1978-79) critiqued conventional representations of women in domestic spaces. Her†¦show more content†¦Of the connection between her work and the media, Simmons says: â€Å"I was conscious of both looking back at my own childhood and commenting upon the way this period of time was portrayed in the media.† She discusses the imagery in Post-World War II America, explaining that her photographs served to â€Å"point out the darker subtext lurking beneath the whitewashed presentation of this time period.† She has said that she inspired by things like LIFE magazines and old commercials, media that was full of images of domesticity and a â€Å"sterilized† image of the ideal American home. It was these that she was reacting against by creating images with a similar color and format, but replacing the happy homemaker with posed dolls in a scene of chaos and frustration. It seems that Simmons is pointing out the postmodern feminist view that â€Å"femininity is a masquerade, a set of poses adopted by women in order to conform to societal expectations about womanhood.† In an essay discussing the relationship between domesticity and aesthetics, Kevin Melchionne notes that though â€Å"feminists are†¦suspicious of any attempt to idealize the home† because the y see it as a â€Å"sabotage† of their efforts to â€Å"enter public life,† but he acknowledges that â€Å"many feminists are committed to recognizing the importance of what women traditionally contribute.† It is this complexity of a woman’s experience that Simmons