Batman and Catwoman Painted Face to Face — Print & Oil Painting

Thin runs of grey paint drip down the pale ground on both sides of the two heads, and the artist has left them exactly where they fell. That single decision sets the register of the piece: a sprayed and brushed portrait on a cream field, closer to a studio wall than to a comic page.

The two faces very nearly meet. The cowl fills the left half, matte black with a soft sheen along the brow and the seam of the jaw, the mouth set flat and unreadable. Catwoman leans in from the right, chin lifted, red lips parted, her eye mask tapering into two small ears above dark hair gathered in a high knot.

Nothing touches. The gap between his chin and her mouth is a few centimetres of empty cream, and the whole image is built on that suspension. Both figures are cropped at the shoulder, so there is room for nothing except the decision neither of them is making.

Below the collar the armour is suggested rather than described: a few pale strokes for the chest plate, a bat shape half lost in shadow, a stray drip crossing it. From our DC Universe collection. The full-length version in shadow plays the same encounter with both bodies in view.