Caroline Walker

Walker’s practice explores the relationship between gender roles and architecture, in particular the psychological space of home and its relation to women. Through a process which begins with sourcing aspirational houses in which to stage narratives with models, costumes and props, the work delves into the illusory space of painting and its place in a history of representing ideas of femininity. The geometry of the architecture frames and contains the subjects in an environment, which seems more akin to a set than lived space, while a performance of power between the subjects and the voyeuristic gaze of the viewer plays out. Archetypes of a feminine subject are confused through the often incongruous actions or dress of the characters, while recurring motifs operate as both points of art historical reference and insignificant domestic paraphernalia. Through a filmic sense of narrative the viewer is always witness to a moment before or after some unspecified event, creating an oddly charged atmosphere, which hovers between a banal vision of domesticity and something darker, more sexually charged.