This Is What's Expected - Picture Plate

A young girl applies rouge while studying herself in the mirror — not to admire, but to learn. The phrase This is what is expected appears reflected back at her, turning a quiet, domestic moment into something far more deliberate.

This plate captures the earliest stage of conditioning: before doubt, before resistance, before experience has had time to intervene. It’s about learning how to look right, behave correctly, and meet expectations long before anyone has explained who set them.

Subtle, restrained, and quietly unsettling, this piece opens the Delicately Sarcastic collection at its very beginning — where roles are first rehearsed and absorbed without question.