Luke Skywalker against Wampa — Print & Oil Painting

The figure hangs upside down from the roof of the cave, held by the ankles in the ice, and the picture is read from the top downward in that order: boots, coat, hanging arm, open hand.

The reach is the subject. That arm drops straight down out of the sleeve and the fingers spread and curl slightly toward the floor. Three quarters of the way across the frame, a lightsaber hilt lies half buried in loose snow with the emitter pointing up. The gap between the hand and the hilt is measured, deliberate, and far too wide to cross by stretching.

The animal stands in the middle distance, hunched forward, long arms hanging, two dark horns curving back off a heavy skull and a dark muzzle beneath. It is painted softly and half lost in the fog, and it is not looking at him. Whatever it is doing, it believes it has time.

Colour has been reduced to almost nothing. The whole canvas is cyan and pale blue-green: a dense fringe of icicles across the top of the frame, mist, fallen rock, snow, and a figure the same temperature as everything else. Only a few brighter flecks of falling ice break the tone.

This is the exact minute the character stops being a talented pilot and becomes something else, and the painting has chosen the second before it happens rather than the moment itself. Part of our Star Wars collection, next to the same figure kneeling by wreckage in the snow and his fighter down on the same ice.