Shielded

Oil on linen, [formaat] cm. A figure emerges from a deep red ground, the body lit and turned toward us, an arm drawn up across the torso. The face stays high in the frame, half caught in shadow, looking off to the side. The strength of the work is in that double movement: she becomes visible and shields herself in the same moment. The arm crosses just as the body comes into the light, so the gesture reads as both reveal and refusal. The warm ground gives almost nothing away, which keeps the eye on the skin and the turn of the shoulder, where everything in the painting is happening.