Literature

At first glance, this figure appears open, her eyes meeting ours, posture steady, but the title unsettles that first impression. Incognito implies a veil, a chosen ambiguity. There's confidence in her gaze, but it's not an invitation. It holds us, not out of reach, but not entirely in, either.The brushwork mirrors this tension: vivid around the features, then loosening into abstraction at the edges, where the figure almost dissolves back into the linen.

It's a visual rhythm: revelation and retreat. Like someone speaking with candour, yet still keeping something for themselves.This isn't about deception. It's about agency. About what it means to be seen on one's own terms. It reminds me something Zadie Smith once wrote, and I paraphrase because it is from memory, "people aren't blank pages but they're palimpsests, always hiding stories underneath."Incognito honours that. The right to choose what's shown, and what remains quietly, purposefully obscured.