Ranelle Dial pays a wistful tribute to the post man, or mailman as they are called in the Philippines, a dying breed that seems destined to go the way of the amah (lived-in servants) with communications, even real-time and video-conferencing across continents, in cyberspace. It was like the epitaph to the telegram. Technology is fast changing the way we communicate, do business and live. Even the court of law has allowed video deposition (testimony) while online medical consultation, diagnosis and treatment are acceptable, and especially so in a life-and-death situation. And so, once when a signature, seal, emblem or some kind of imprimatur can be made unreproduceable, the courier companies could find their business shrinking. Here, Dial captures the mailman garbed in uniform (not certain of the nationality, as Dial's images of mailman are drawn from all over the world) taking a respite by the street mailbox, quenching his thirst from the thermos flask. Thermos flask? It sure looks like yesterday, with all the sophisticated range today. The work, rendered with the nostalgia of old photographs and airbrushed, is from Dial's solo, Withering, her fourth in 2008. A busy artist, she has at least some 15 solos since her first, Cube Uncubed, in 2006 at the Maginet Gallery in the Philippines. She also took part in the artist's residency at the Project Space Pilipinas in Manila in 2011 and the Liverpool Hope University in 2012. She had also featured with Leonardo Aguinaldo and Leo Abaya in the Without Walls exhibition. Dial made her Henry Butcher art auction debut on April 13, 2014 when her work, The 1900s (2008) sold for RM6,160. Dial graduated with a BFA in Visual Communications at the University of the Philippines' College of Fine Art in 2003.