Minerva Betts’s 1985 Pagework is annotated with phrases that have the ring of familiar platitudes designed to keep women firmly in their place. The repeated image of a female torso is dressed in different accessories cut from coloured photographs – a pink dress and baby, an authoritative blazer, a wedding dress and bouquet. Though central to the drama, the woman herself is curiously absent. Subject to, and nearly obliterated by, the needs, desires and opinions of others, her role is seen and directed through their eyes and words. (Brought to light, November 2009)