This is a painting about the myth of having it all.

In corporate language, work-life balance is framed as an achievable ideal, a polished phrase that suggests harmony, flexibility, and equal opportunities. But for many women, the reality is far more fractured.

This piece explores the impossible demand to succeed professionally while carrying the emotional and practical weight of family life. It asks a difficult question: how many versions of yourself must you become to satisfy every expectation?

Three female faces emerge within the composition, not as separate individuals, but as fragments of one woman divided across competing roles. Worker, caregiver, self.

They are partially obscured by a burned out mask of circular apertures, a barrier, a filter, a system of surveillance. The mask suggests burnout, reduction, and the way institutions often view people as functions rather than whole human beings.

To thrive in environments built around relentless productivity, women are too often expected to prioritise work over family, ambition over care, performance over presence.

This is not balance, this is fragmentation.