The Witness

We grew up reading about war. It lived in textbooks, in chapters we could close, in stories that belonged to another time. Numbers, dates, victories, losses. It all felt distant, almost unreal.

But in 2025 and beyond, distance disappeared. War entered our daily lives through screens. Not as history, but as repetition. Cities burning. Skies breaking. Names of places turning into headlines we could not ignore. Iran, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia. Closer to home, tensions that no longer felt like just news. And somewhere within all of this, there are people who do not make the headlines.

This painting is not of one woman. It is of many.

She stands not as a victim alone, but as a witness. To noise, to loss, to the slow normalization of violence. Her eyes hold what words often fail to carry. Not just fear, but understanding. The kind that comes from seeing too much, too often. Behind her, the world burns. The birds circle, not as symbols, but as reminders. Life continues, even in destruction. Or perhaps it simply adapts. Her silence is not empty. It is heavy. It questions without asking.

Is this necessary?

Not directed at one nation, one leader, or one moment. But at all of us. At the idea that violence must always find a place in human history. Because in the end, whether we speak or stay silent, we are all witnessing something.

And that, in itself, changes us.