TIE Fighters Cross a Sunset Sky Beneath the Death Star — Print & Oil Painting

Almost nothing in this picture is lit, and that is the entire design. A sun sits on the sea horizon as one small brilliant disc, throws a long broken gold path straight down the water towards the viewer, and stops there. Everything above and to either side falls away into deep blue-black within a very short distance.

Three fighters cross the warm band at the horizon in silhouette, one higher and central, one low left, one low right, reduced to the bare glyph of the design, a dark bar between two flat panels. They are painted small enough to be missed on a first look, which is exactly the right size for them.

The battle station is in the upper left and it is enormous. Only its upper limb catches any light at all; the rest is a dark circle sitting against a slightly less dark sky, the concave dish just readable on its face. The artist has resisted every temptation to light it properly. It is the largest object on the canvas and one of the least visible.

The result is a seascape that happens to have the Empire in it. Water, cloud, a sun going down, three machines out over the sea on their way somewhere: the tone of a holiday photograph, with the thing in the top corner doing all the work.

Our Star Wars collection holds two more views of it: the station painted alone in the starlit dark and the fighters against a desert sunset.