The Magician’s Escape
2025.
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: L50cm xW40cm
This painting is the moment before the escape. The figure presses against the walls of a confined space. Limbs stretched. Muscles tense. The colours shift and shimmer like thoughts in motion. The grid behind them is not just a backdrop. It is a cage. A system. A structure that holds and limits and defines.
I call this piece The Magician’s Escape because it is about the yearning to disappear. To vanish from the expectations and the noise and the weight of being. But it is also about the longing to be found. To be seen. To be told that you are allowed to leave.
There is magic in the moment before flight. In the tension between staying and going. In the silence that answers our loudest questions.
This work is my spell. My plea. My truth.
Esther Akello 