Painter Elise van den Brand examines figurative painting and the dynamics of the gaze in a new body of work. Through cropped portraits and fragmentary compositions she interrogates the tension between how subjects intend to be seen and how viewers project narratives onto images. The exhibition draws on Sartre’s notion of le regard, explores social armour as protective presentation, and probes the instability that emerges when contextual markers are removed, exposing ambiguous subjectivities.