A masked face floats between a saturated blue field and vertical tongues of orange, the composition split into complementary opposites that heighten tension. Blue and orange sit across the color wheel, a pairing artists use to intensify contrast and pull the eye, from Van Gogh’s experiments to contemporary color teaching. The face is built in small, opaque planes, while the surrounding strokes run in long drips and rises, so figure and ground feel unstable, as if heat and night are competing for space. Commissioned for Mekong Review, a quarterly literary magazine covering writing and culture in Asia, the image mirrors the publication’s clear, pared storytelling by anchoring one emblem inside a charged atmosphere.