In the Hourglass by Catherine Haverkamp

"In the Hourglass is a visual convergence of multiple conflicts most women have to face at some point in their lives: the internal struggle to balance career with family, the many insecurities or regrets that are attached to the question of whether to have children or not; or mourning the relationship that has transformed when the children have grown and left and the blame that can be internalized for the outcome of the child. The portrait as a reflection is symbolic in the sense that we have a constrained view of women only in the frame of what our society has set as the standard for femininity. The woman in the painting is the only one who can see her true self. The looming shadow of the man in the background is a literal visualization of feeling over-shadowed by male counterparts in the workplace, community and home. The Venus statue which represents the pressures of ideal beauty sits upon textbooks, insinuating how the scales seem to be tilted in what we value in a woman." - Catherine Haverkamp