When beauty becomes a role, who is the woman performing it?

High heels. Perfectly styled hair. Carefully applied make-up. A beautiful dress. The posture, the expression, the composure. Wow… we notice her directly. She knows how to enter a room, how to catch a glance, hold it for a moment and leave something behind. There is elegance in the details, confidence in the way she carries herself and a little mystery in what she chooses not to reveal.

She looks as though everything is under control. And perhaps it is.
Is she? Look a little closer.

In Face-Off, the head of a fashion figure is replaced by a chess piece. One small change, and the image becomes unsettling. The woman remains beautifully presented, yet something about her presence no longer feels certain. Is she the one making the moves, or the one being moved? The figure becomes part of a game whose rules are written around beauty, desirability, status and the expectations attached to being a woman.

Checkmate…

FACE-OFF…

The first impression is only the first layer.
We notice what shines. We rarely ask what it covers.
The looking is part of the work.

Gold leaf catches the eye like a flash of jewellery or a trace of luxury. It speaks of radiance, desirability and the pleasure of being seen. Yet the gold is fragmented, set into a surface that refuses to remain flawless. Beneath the polish, raw wood introduces another world: rough, exposed, in contrast with the glamour of the figure. Newspaper fragments, paint and found objects gather across the composition until the surface feels built up, interrupted and imperfect.

Then the resin. It conceals and reflects, and lets the viewer become part of the image. Depending on the angle, we see the surface, our own reflection, or details that were not visible at first.

This is not a work against heels, make-up or beautiful dresses. She may love every detail. Getting ready may be her ritual, her pleasure, her way of expressing herself.

It is about what happens when the image becomes more visible than the woman. We admire what we can see. We recognise beauty, notice the styling and respond to the familiar signs of elegance. Yet the qualities that sustain a woman from within, her humour, tenderness, intelligence, resilience, curiosity and contradictions, may remain hidden behind the very image that draws us towards her.

External beauty can attract our attention. It cannot tell the whole story, unless we are willing to look further. Are we interested in that part of her, or do we only see that she is full of beauty?

Perhaps the most interesting question is not whether the figure is wearing a mask. Perhaps it is how much we can discover about a woman when we look beyond what first made us notice her.

Every work in The Missing Layer begins with a question. Look closer…

Who is making the moves?
And what would remain, if nobody were looking?

After all, a beautiful image may open the door.
The woman herself is always more than the first impression.

Face Off is part of The Missing Layer, an ongoing series about the identities women carry, and the relationships that gave them to us.

ARTWORK DETAILS

Title: Face off

Collection: The Missing Layer

Series: abstract

Type & Authorisation: Original Artwork. Hand-signed by the artist Aggi.S (accompanied by a physical Certificate Of Authenticity)

Year: 2026

Medium: Mixed media on raw wood.

Size: 80 x 106 cm

Print Enquiries: hello@mytravelspaces.com

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