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A thousand myriad waves. Acrylic and oil on aluminum, mounted on a canvas cardboard  50×70 cm.

 

This work was painted on the occasion of the tragic shipwreck off Pylos (Greece, June 2023), where at least 500 migrants (including children), lost their lives.

 

The huge migration problem, of mainly young people from poor countries in Africa and Asia who struggle to cross the Mediterranean, hoping for a better life in Europe, is intractable and costs hundreds of human lives every year.

 

This issue is linked to climate change which makes life even more miserable in poor countries. In some of them, there is already such a scarcity of water that life is almost impossible.

 

Unfortunately, the advanced countries of the EU are not doing what they should do to deal radically with these problems, which by time are getting even worse.

 

Although the majority of the victims are men, among them there are also several young women, (many with their children). I chose to portray a woman and give her features and style of a western lady. Someone who does not lack dignity and pride and her life has the same value as the life of any western woman.

 

The portrait consists of squares that lose their coherence and fall into the waves of the raging sea.

 

Keywords: painting, smyrnios, portrait, woman, op art, optical, climate change, migrant crisis, tragedy, mediterranean, shipwreck, drowning, Pylos, waves.
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