Concerning herself with the visible and invisible hierarchies of daily life, Nicole Wermers (b.1971) works with sculpture, collage and photography to explore material culture and the urban environment. The German-born, London-based artist often combines and reconfigures everyday objects into her works as she interrogates social rituals and the intersection of public and private space. This sculpture belongs to her ‘Reclining Females’ series, in which rudimentary plaster sculptures of nude women are balanced atop of commercial cleaning trolleys. The works sprang from the artist’s photographs of maintenance carts – in hotels, train stations, airports and elsewhere – combined with an interest in the art-historical motif of the reclining female. The quick-drying plaster Wermers uses requires her to work fast, which mirrors the pressure placed on cleaners to complete their tasks at pace. These pieces subvert the objectifying male gaze while standing as monuments to female workers whose labour is typically overlooked and under-appreciated.