The $200,000 Star Wars painting that no one will buy

“Once you see him, you’ll never be able to not see him again,” says Robert Xavier Burden, the man who spent 2,000 hours hand painting Jar Jar and dozens of other Star Wars characters onto his latest masterpiece, The 20th Century Space Opera.

He’s right. Now I can’t unsee Jar Jar. Then I spend another half hour or so searching the world where he was hiding. I’m talking to Burden the entire time, but it’s hard to divert my eyes from his garden of galactic delights. It’s like walking away from the destruction of Sodom—almost impossible not to keep looking back. That’s what he wants people to do. He tells me that most people at museums look at a work for about six seconds (other estimates put that number at 15 to 30 seconds) and that he’d like to make paintings “that someone could stare at for 10 minutes.”

Ten minutes isn’t a lot to ask—he’s packed his painting with a Huttload of illustrations of Star Wars toys, as well as images of George Lucas’ influences (hello, Gandalf!)—but the asking price may be. It’s $200,000. That’s not a huge price tag for someone usually in the market for a Jeff Koons or an Andy Warhol, but this isn’t a Koons or a Warhol—it’s a Burden.