Chickadee

Perched delicately on a near-invisible branch, the chickadee in this painting becomes a quiet symbol of fleeting resilience. Rendered with gentle lines and subtle highlights, it embodies a lightness—a creature that can lift away from danger, suspended between presence and departure. Against the warm, earthy background, suggestive of scorched soil or air thick with ash, the bird feels momentarily grounded, as though pausing mid-flight to observe what has been lost. Its ephemeral presence speaks of life that is not rooted but quick and instinctive, always ready to move, to vanish, to begin again somewhere else.

The painting invites reflection on the contrast between mobility and permanence. While trees, insects, and earthbound creatures are often caught and consumed by the weight of destruction, the chickadee escapes—not through strength, but through lightness. It carries no baggage, builds no fortress, and yet survives. In this way, the work becomes a quiet meditation on transience—not just the fragility of life, but the grace found in its fleeting moments. The chickadee, small and free, embodies a kind of hopeful sorrow: a life that can escape, but not untouched.

Pencils on paper / 30 x 21 cm