The home is often the perfect stage for domestic bliss and self observation. The award winning 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 the Highway 27 on Long Island , from Patchogue to Easthampton, recreating her interiors from cheap motel rooms to upscale Hamptons 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 film of Wim Wenders: Instead of a lonely cowboy she is a lone housewife walking out of the picture and away from her family, into the sunset.

This is Bastienne Schmidt's fourth photography book, her most previous book was 'ShadowHome', which was published in 2005 and won the award for best photo book in Germany.