This is my friend Star, a high-powered lawyer based in Manila. We last saw each other at the Berlin Marathon in 2019 after maybe 30 years apart. I ran agonizingly slowly; she was astoundingly fast.

This is an experiment on hidden colors. The finished portrait looks like it’s only made of raw umber, yellow ocher, and titanium white but underneath are neon colors: pink, blue, and green. The brush strokes in the background were done at high speed because Star is always in motion.

I started on 26 December 2020, while on Covid-quarantine, and finished on 1 January 2021, the first for the new year.