carrie ann woolsey

Carrie Woolsey’s work is essentially about language; written, verbal and visual. She uses semiotics to lead her audience into the deeper meanings in her work that lie beneath the humour on the surface of the images. Often domestic, the objects that are placed throughout Woolsey’s photographs signify many things, offering an insight into a contemporary feminist perspective on the world around us. 

Woolsey’s work is heavily influenced by feminist art theory and particularly the theories around the Male Gaze, a term coined by the film critic Laura Mulvey. It describes a female character from the viewpoint of a heterosexual male, and has filtered into everyday culture, from interpersonal encounters to social media posts. It is through these experiences that women learn their very existence can be used as currency, and subscribe to everything available on the market in a bid to turn themselves into the ideal woman. 

It is this social conditioning that brought about the derogatory every day sexism that women experience today.  As a reference to this, the artist uses every day vernacular for the titles of her work. The language she chooses is generational and and speaks from the perspective of a young woman born in the 1990’s. Using this terminology to question and subvert its meaning, particularly its often violent and aggressive associations, Woolsey’s work is about words often sourced from the Urban Dictionary, such as axewound; serpent socket; cock pocket. Her work reflects what this language reveals about how society treats women, particularly young women, today when violence against them remains a world-wide issue. Overall, women’s genitalia in mainstream culture is referred to in negative and derogatory terms, and as a young woman, Woolsey is asking why.