Sheila With Red Hair

In Sheila With Red Hair, Los Angeles artist Marjorie Salvaterra turns the myth of the perfect woman inside out. Her protagonist, Sheila, appears poised and polished - red wig in place, drink in hand - but the mask begins to slip. Each black-and-white photograph feels like a scene from a surreal domestic drama, where glamour collides with quiet despair.

Titles like Sheila Goes to Market and Sheila Prays evoke a script of ideal femininity, yet Salvaterra’s lens exposes its absurdity. Beneath the elegance lies exhaustion; beneath the smile, a crack. Drawing from personal experience and inherited advice - “Smile,” “Don’t worry your pretty little head,” “Don’t tell anyone” - Salvaterra transforms familiar rituals of womanhood into sharp social commentary.

Through wigs, props, and theatrical staging, she turns the suburban dream into a stage set for emotional truth. The result is both humorous and unsettling: a satire of domestic perfection that doubles as an act of confession.

Like a blend of Cindy Sherman’s performance and Diane Arbus’s empathy, Salvaterra’s Sheila embodies every woman who has been told to keep it together. By exaggerating the performance, the artist reveals its fragility - and, perhaps, its futility.

In the end, Sheila With Red Hair isn’t just about breaking down; it’s about breaking free. Salvaterra’s photographs invite us to laugh, to question, and to finally exhale.

My mother’s generation.And her mother’s generation.

And all that they have passed down to their daughters.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“Smile.”

It was the picture of perfection.

Until…

They screamed. They cried. They lay down in the driveway or stood in the kitchen with their head in the oven.

We have Oprah.

They had their mothers.

We have Prozac.

They had asylums.

They weren’t crazy.

It was one too many secrets for a girl to hold.