Mysterious Duality — Print & Oil Painting

One canvas, split down the middle by a blade of cyan light. On the left, Corvo's mask — cracked plate, brass lenses, the whole cold apparatus of the first game. On the right, Emily: one dark eye, one arched brow, and a scarf of deep blue pulled up over her mouth, its gold filigree curling like frost on a window.

The division is the whole idea, and the artist has been disciplined about it. The vertical line of light is dead centre and razor-thin, and every element on either side answers something opposite it: metal against skin, rivets against embroidery, a manufactured eye against a real one. Even the tonality splits — the left half sits in green-grey shadow, the right in warmer teal and gold.

It is the most graphic piece in the collection and the one that survives scale best. At small sizes it reads as a single striking symbol; printed large in a hallway it becomes something closer to a heraldic panel. The extreme vertical proportion is unusual and worth planning a wall around rather than fitting into one.

Part of our Dishonored collection. The two halves have their own portraits: The Phantom Assassin for Corvo, and Moments of Intrigue and Betrayal for Emily out of costume.