This one started out as the fall of Icarus consideration, but I decided to broaden its meaning. I am particularly satisfied with how it turned out – painting flowers, butterflies, puppies and, obviously, feathers is not something I am inclined to do. I tried not to paint it beautifully (as if this were a problem :)) and I think it is precisely this that differentiates the work from what would otherwise undoubtedly turn out to be a kitsch. It also accentuates the said brokenness.

Be it himself or be it the environment, man cannot but be a man, and his nature is to want.

A stylistic-conceptual blend between Out of the blue and Migration micro-series. The effect of massive work migrations will eventually hit the country’s head, and it will hit like a hammer. As with everything, the failure to acknowledge a problem and act upon it can only make it more severe.

The work uses a chess problem where 8 queens are placed on the board and none of them is in direct line of fire of any of the others to illustrate the nuclear powers’ Mexican standoff. Any (reckless) move leads to a dark scenario appropriately called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). What is at the stake is nothing less but life itself.

Another view on migration, this time with the feeling of homesickness or missing, accentuated by the focal area of the work being in the first panel, to which eye always comes back to. The pursuit of happiness is an instinct shared by all, and it rarely comes without a price.