Artist Statement
The home is often the perfect stage for domestic bliss and self observation.
The artist, Bastienne Schmidt, challenges this domestic utopia in her new series ‘Home Stills’ in which she photographs herself in the role of a ‘Housewife’.
Schmidt gives a visual interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s idea of ‘a room of one’s own’. She follows Highway 27 on Long Island, from Patchogue to Easthampton, recreating her interiors from cheap motel rooms to upscale Hampton’s mansions as imaginary rooms of her own.
The sense of quiet meditation reminds one of Vermeer’s interiors and the melancholy and empty spaces of Edward Hopper. The light with which Schmidt draws in her photographs, casts long and clear shadows, dense with rich color.
In this world, the female figure walks seamlessly from open landscape into suburbia. The silhouette-like female character seems to be stepping out of a Wim Wenders movie, walking out of the picture, into the sunset.
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