Open for a surprise
2025.
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: L20cm xW15cm
This piece is about the masks we construct, the versions of ourselves that stand in the world while our truest essence retreats.
It asks: what do we leave behind to guard us, and what does it cost to live through our proxies? Is the monster a protector, or does it become the only thing others ever see?
In creating this work, I wanted to capture that tension between presence and absence, between the jagged armor we show and the unseen form we conceal. It is both a warning and an invitation: to look closer, to question what is real, and to wonder what lies beyond the edges.
Esther Akello 