Domestic Fictions: A Life Less Ordinary at the ROSEGALLERY: Exhibit Review

Written By: Ema Kojić

Photo Edited By: Alanna Reid

Copy Edited By: Chloë Rain

The ROSEGALLERY art center in Santa Monica, California has opened a new exhibit: Domestic Fictions: A Life Less Ordinary. This exhibit contains photographs by the photographers Jo Ann Callis, Bruce Charlesworth, and Mary Frey.

ROSEGALLERY was founded in 1992 by Rose Shoshana. The gallery has become a world-renowned contemporary art gallery with works by both well-established and emerging artists. Located at Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, California, ROSEGALLERY contains new exhibits and different mediums of art like bookmaking, design and sculptural art.

The Domestic Fictions: A Life Less Ordinary exhibit is a collection of works by three different photographers. This exhibition resembles the group show at MoMA’s 1991 Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort. The nostalgia of the inward-looking and moving themes present in the MoMA exhibit had inspired the ROSEGALLERY exhibit.

The works of the artists Jo Ann Callis, Bruce Charlesworth and Mary Frey were all a part of the original MoMA exhibit in 1991. ROSEGALLERY used these older works from the 1970s-90s to recreate and modernize the MoMA exhibit Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, turning it into ROSEGALLERY’s Domestic Fictions: A Life Less Ordinary. The title has been changed, strategically evoking a new emotion.

Untitled (Yellow Bed, Pink Floor), 1995. From the Domestic Interior series © Jo Ann Callis (Images courtesy of the artist and ROSEGALLERY)

In this exhibit, the images taken by Jo Ann Callis often narrow in on the subject as objects and settings, leaving human figures out intentionally. Some of her most striking photographs feature beds covered in solid bold sheets with bright colors and nostalgic patterns in the background. The juxtaposing textures of velvet, fuzzy carpet-like and seemingly smooth, soft materials creates a sense of comfort for the viewer.

Mary Frey
Woman Applying Makeup
Domestic Rituals 1979-1983

On the contrary, Mary Frey’s photographs include human subjects in almost every shot. Her pictures feature daily, regular, family-like events like those she named Domestic Rituals. In this collection taken between 1979 and 1983, images range from all age groups. Frey captured these images in black and white, as her photographs carry a strong sentimental essence of ordinary home life. In her collection Real Life Dramas taken from 1984 to 1987, Frey takes her photographs in color. These images also contain subjects in all age ranges. Some of these images feature eccentric settings with patterned, vibrant wallpapers.

Bruce Charlesworth images are their own in the exhibit. The three series featured by him in the ROSEGALLERY are: Trouble (1982-1983), Fate (1984-1987), and Man and Nature (1987-1989). Charlesworth’s two photographs from Trouble contain a thrilling vibrance that creates a cartoon-like portrayal of domestic life. Fate uses a central subject of a middle-aged white man who is only looking directly at the camera once. Throughout these images, the subject is pictured with very clear expressions that demonstrate an angry, chaotic sense of home life. These photographs feature a 1950s-esque sense of that classic working man surrounded by a simple, colorful suburban life. The viewer is unable to escape this character Charlesworth has created. In Man and Nature, his work takes on a completely new take of domestic life. This series resembles an otherworldly type of domesticity. His images contain sharp contrasts, darkness, and electric shades of blue and purple.

Each of these photographers approach domesticity and, quite literally, “a life less ordinary” in different ways. The ROSEGALLERY brings to life the MoMA’s 1991 exhibit with just as much relevance and lasting impact over 30 years later.

This exhibit will be open until January 14, 2023. For more information visit rosegallery.net.