Generations of women served in workplaces in the capacity of ‘office wives’. Via the school system, many were streamed as workers rather than thinkers, encouraged into commercial rather than academic studies.

With the advent of corporate expansionism, these women (bred to be loyal, dutiful, and grateful) became ‘units’ for exploitation. Powerless in the face of demotions and downsizing, their loyalty offered them little in the way of security.

The shorthand script I have used in these paintings (a silent and dying language known mostly to women), is scrawled on banners that float passed backdrops of paper-thin black-windowed urban towers (Curtains, All my working life I have thought of other things). Within these temporary facades, women clock-watch the week away (I am dreading this) until the vortex of Friday night drinks (Happy Hour) signals temporary freedom.

Better a job for life than this creative uncertainty reflects on the unspoken assumption that life outside of the office is to be feared.

Death of a shorthand typist - I used to be so keen and bubbly - The phrase ‘keen and bubbly’ was used in an actual ‘situations vacant’ advertisement. One can only assume that it was a position for a woman, not a man.

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