Lisa Gonzalez is a California-born photographer and writer based in New York City. She received a Bachelor of Arts is photography from Parsons the New School for Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Culture and Media Theory. As a product of American suburbia and the early World Wide Web, Lisa’s work focuses on cultural myths derived from popular and alternative social histories as well as consumer advertising and visual media. Her work has been exhibited at Max Mara, Milk Gallery, the International Studio and Curatorial Program, and the North Carolina Museum of Art.
HOUSE (WIFE) is a series of still life photographs of domestic objects and the tasks associated with said objects. Referential of advertisements circulated between 1940 and 1960 in the United States, the images underline the taxing relationship between design, consumerism, and the intricate formation of female value and identity.
Consumer culture in the United States during the mid-twentieth century was driven by the assurance that appliances, machines, and tools for the home would liberate the housewife and free her from labor-intensive work.
While advancements were being made in the sciences, social politics, and technology, women were encouraged, specifically through consumer messaging and marketing, to excel privately within the home despite the promise of more free time for her own interests. The result of these messages not only interned women to the domestic and caretaking arenas, but also created an incomplete picture of womanhood and a partial and narrow definition of femininity.
As current discourse can acknowledge housework and childrearing a fulfilling and, for some, necessary role, what at the time prevented women from removing themselves from the housewife identity was the lack of an alternative subjectivity for her to identify with. The grounds for this series is to recognize the similarities women currently face in the beginning of the twenty-first century and as a reminder to the progression that has been made on an individual and collective basis for women.
