Chewbacca throwing a stormtrooper — Print & Oil Painting

The picture is built on one radial burst. An explosion behind the Wookiee throws pale spokes of light outward in every direction, and every rib of that starburst points back toward the same place, the trooper being held over his head.

The lift has been drawn with real attention to weight. Both arms are locked straight up, one hand under a thigh and the other at the shoulder plate, and the body up there is entirely slack: arms hanging, helmet tipped back, legs folded over the forearm. It reads as a man being handled rather than a man fighting.

Chewbacca is mid-roar, head back, mouth open on the teeth and tongue. The fur is laid in as long dragged strokes of brown and umber that lift to a warm near-white wherever the blast catches an edge. His bandolier crosses the chest as a row of pale metal rectangles with the leather satchel riding at the hip, the only equipment he carries and the only straight line anywhere on him.

The best-observed passage is the lower right corner. A dropped blaster is still tumbling in the air, and a white forearm and black glove are pushed right up against the picture plane, thrown completely out of focus. Somebody else is arriving, very close, and we are being shown the half-second before they do.

Everything else is dark machinery: a coiled line at the upper left, ribbed plating, a red-lit interior going back into smoke. From our Star Wars collection, alongside the roaring portrait in orange and teal and the Falcon drawing fire on Tatooine.