Housewife is a conceptual photography series exploring the expectations, pressures and hidden realities attached to the traditional idea of the housewife. Through staged domestic imagery, exaggerated makeup, household objects and the human body, the series questions whether the home is always a place of comfort—or whether it can become a place of confinement, performance and silence.
The photographs featuring the woman with darkened eyes and bruising-like makeup introduce a dark interpretation. The marks around the eyes suggest the physical and emotional consequences that can exist behind a carefully maintained domestic image. Whether read literally as domestic violence or metaphorically as the bruising caused by expectations, exhaustion and repression, the injuries represent what can remain hidden beneath the role of the “perfect housewife.”
"Women belong in the bedroom and the kitchen, in that order."
-- Bobby Riggs, American tennis player
The more composed portraits are deliberately almost theatrical. The subject sits upright, looks directly at the viewer and wears an apron associated with traditional femininity and domestic responsibility.
There is something deliberately unnatural about the stillness. She appears to be performing the role expected of her. The smile and warmth traditionally associated with images of the happy homemaker are absent. Instead, her expression is neutral and almost confrontational. This creates a question for the viewer: Is she happy, trapped, exhausted—or simply pretending?
The photographs therefore challenge the romanticised image of the housewife. Rather than presenting domesticity as inherently negative, the work examines what happens when a person’s identity becomes reduced to the role they are expected to fulfil.
Pots and Pans: Normally, they'd represent cooking, nurturing and providing for a family. Here, they become almost absurdly excessive—covering and surrounding the woman’s body. They begin to resemble weights, armour or restraints.
The woman is literally surrounded by the objects associated with her expected responsibilities. What should be ordinary tools have become something she cannot escape. The image therefore asks: At what point does responsibility become a burden?
There is also an element of dark humour in these photographs. The absurdity of having cookware positioned around the body makes the viewer initially question what they are seeing, before the symbolism becomes apparent.
These portraits use deliberately exaggerated makeup to make the face appear almost distorted.
The heavy contouring, enlarged lips and dramatic eyes create a version of femininity that feels constructed rather than natural, even mimicking that of unproportionable Botox and other body modifications.
This is significant because the housewife is often associated with being attractive, presentable and composed regardless of what is happening beneath the surface.
Here, that expectation is pushed to an uncomfortable extreme.
The face becomes a mask.
The makeup asks the viewer to consider how women can be expected to maintain an outward appearance of normality even when their internal reality is very different.
The bruising-like marks are intended to create visual ambiguity: are you looking at violence, exhaustion, emotional damage, or all three?
That uncertainty is intentional.
These black-and-white photographs move away from the posed studio-like portraits and place the subject within an actual domestic environment.
This shift is important. The earlier images show the idea of the housewife. These photographs show her actually doing the work: Cooking; cleaning; standing at the kitchen counter; drinking; looking away.
The lack of colour strips away some of the visual distraction and makes the scenes feel almost documentary. Yet they remain staged, reinforcing the idea that domestic femininity itself can become a performance.
The woman is surrounded by the objects of everyday domestic life, but there is very little sense of freedom within the space.
The final three photographs introduce a different woman and a different form of confinement.
The delicate chains wrapped around her face and body initially appear beautiful, almost like jewellery. But their placement transforms them into something restrictive: They cover her eyes. They cross her mouth. They surround her body.
This creates a progression from decoration to restriction, as something traditionally associated with femininity and beauty becomes a restraint.
The chain across the mouth is particularly important because it represents silence—being unable or unwilling to speak about what is happening.
The chain across the eyes can represent not seeing, refusing to see, or being prevented from seeing the reality of one’s situation.
The imagery therefore expands the concept beyond the traditional housewife and towards the broader ways women can become trapped by expectations surrounding beauty, femininity, relationships and social roles.
Ultimately, Housewife is not simply about cooking or marriage.
It is about identity and expectation.
The title deliberately sounds ordinary and almost nostalgic. Housewife is a word historically associated with a very specific image of femininity: the woman who stays at home, looks after the family, maintains the household and presents an image of domestic happiness.
The series takes that familiar image and gradually distorts it.
this collection is to suggest that what appears beautiful, domestic and familiar from the outside can conceal something much more complicated underneath.
Most importantly, the work doesn’t suggest that being a housewife is inherently oppressive. Instead, it questions what happens when the role is imposed, when domestic labour is undervalued, when femininity becomes a performance, and when someone feels they cannot step outside the identity expected of them.
The final question of the series becomes: When does being a housewife stop being a choice and start becoming a cage?
And perhaps more importantly: How much of yourself can you lose while trying to become what everyone expects you to be?
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