Han Solo Raises His Blaster in Warm Amber Light — Print & Oil Painting

The paint is the subject here as much as the man is. The whole background is built from broad vertical slashes of amber, ochre, black and burnt orange, laid on wet and left unresolved, with thin runs of colour dripping down through them. There is no room, no ship and no location, just a wall of brushwork with a pale halo worked into it behind the head.

He stands square to us, cut at the thigh, and holds the blaster up beside his own head with the elbow bent and the muzzle pointing at the ceiling. It is the relaxed version of the gesture, the one made while waiting rather than while aiming, and the loose free hand hanging at his other side agrees with it.

The costume is exact and painted with far more control than the ground behind it: a white shirt open two buttons at the collar, a black waistcoat with a textured facing panel, dark trousers, and the low-slung gunbelt with its rectangular buckle and thigh strap. The face is the most finished passage in the canvas: brows slightly raised, mouth closed, an expression that has decided something and is not going to explain it.

Where the model portraits of this character put him in front of his ship, this one strips the setting out entirely and lets the handling carry the swagger. The measured palette is warm and strongly saturated, and the only cool notes anywhere are the greys in the shirt.

Look in our Star Wars collection for the version aimed straight at the viewer and the same weapon actually being fired.