Kylo Ren Channeling the Force in a Dark Chamber — Print & Oil Painting

The raised hand is the subject of this painting. It is held open at head height with the fingers apart and slightly hooked, and pale blue arcs crawl around the glove and jump away into the background in fine branching threads that light the structures behind him.

Colour is split down the vertical axis. Everything to the left is red: the blade held low, a warm underlight along the robe, a haze hanging at knee height. Everything to the right is electric blue. He stands exactly on the seam between the two, which is a tidy piece of design for a character whose entire problem is that he cannot choose.

The dress gets close attention. A silver band crosses the mask at eye level with a vertical grille beneath it, the cowl is wrapped high and bulky at the throat, the raised arm is sleeved in a long ribbed wrap to the elbow, and the coat falls straight to the deck where it breaks over the boots.

Behind him a curved railing runs across the frame with blue lights set below it, the deck is wet, and fine rain crosses the whole canvas at a slant. His crossguard hilt hangs low and back in the other hand, ignited but unemphasised, pushed almost out of the picture.

Painting him with an open palm rather than a swung blade is the accurate choice. The trick this character is introduced with is not force but arrest: he stops a blaster bolt in mid-air and leaves it hanging there while he walks away. Part of our Star Wars collection, next to the same man unmasked before a wrecked Star Destroyer and lightning used by the one who truly owned it.