Jane Hughes 

The painting ‘Labour Dispute’ is set in a domestic sphere.  Each of the characters is unavailable to each other or for each other.  The setting is dark and unwelcoming. There is chaos all around and a sense of despair.

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Gaston Bachelard spoke of the house as holding ‘the topography of our intimate being’, (Bachelard, Jonas, 1994, p36) it is where we cross the threshold from the public into our private sphere.  It can also be a prison. It is here, in this domestic environment, that female labour is required and must be endured, for if it is to be done well it must be invisible and done without complaint.