Kalimantan, Indonesia

This scene is an original illustration set in Kalimantan, Indonesia. It lies in equatorial latitudes, where the climate is tropical rainforest — hot and wet all year.

Timber houses stand high on wooden stilts above a muddy river, each under a broad hipped roof. A small boat is tied directly beneath the nearest house, between the piles. Banana leaves push in from one side. There are no shadows anywhere: the light is dim, even and directionless, and the far bank recedes as flat pale layers of haze.

Why are these houses raised so far above the ground?

Houses lifted that high are not built for a view — they are built for a river that rises several metres each wet season, and the boat moored under the floor is how a family gets out when it does. Broad hipped roofs shed heavy rain fast. The shadowless, humid light and the layered haze belong to an equatorial rainy season, where the sun spends the afternoon behind cloud.

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