Triss Merigold Wreathed in Swirling Flames — Print & Oil Painting

Two colours sit opposite each other on the wheel and this painting uses almost nothing else: a deep marine teal and a hot orange-red. Put them side by side at full strength and each makes the other louder, which is the whole reason the fire in this canvas looks as hot as it does.

The flame reads as one continuous gesture rather than as an effect. It enters at the left edge, sweeps across the lower third in a broad ribbon, doubles back and rises again at the right where it is leaving her fingers, and if you follow it end to end it behaves exactly like a single loaded stroke pulled across the picture in one movement.

The upper half is left almost empty. Dark teal with long vertical scratches dragged through it, which could be rain or a curtain or simply the ground the figure was painted onto, and it gives the head somewhere quiet to sit.

The face is the only fully resolved passage. Deep red hair swept back over a white fur-lined hood, a gold filigree band across the brow with a small teardrop hanging at its centre, green eyes under dark brows, and a mouth closed on the beginning of a smile. Warm bounce light from the fire comes up under the jaw and along the forearm, which is the detail that makes the flame feel like it is actually in the room.

Held in our The Witcher collection. The fire ring thrown in a rainstorm takes this same ribbon of flame and closes it into a loop.