Fotograf Magazine

Tammy Rae Carland’s work is completely focused on the personal element and therefore her characters are real bodies, real people; her work sometimes even includes the artist herself. Additionally, she treats photography as
a vehicle for performance, often exploring its relationship to the theatrical as opposed to the mundane. In the two featured bodies of work, “Keeping House,” and “Post Partum Portraits,” the themes of family, performance and the everydayness of domesticity continuously arise. In “Keeping House,” Carland stages images of herself and her then partner in their own domestic spaces. There is a cinematic quality to the work in that the images take on an almost surreal feeling of normalcy. This “Pleasantville” quality is also present in “Post Partum Portraits,” Carland’s newest ongoing body of work. A photograph of Carland’s daughter wearing a t-shirt that says “me me me” while her face is obscured is emblematic of the sense of detachment she intends to depict. This technique of revealing portions of the photograph while withholding specific details flows through both “Keeping House” and “Post Partum Portraits”. Thus, although both series are unique in their own ways, Carland has thoughtfully created two symbiotic bodies of work. Her photographs elicit feelings of humor, isolation, tenderness, and curiosity.

Jessica Silverman