During her last visit to Malta, European Parliament president Roberta Metsola was presented with a painting representing the theme of migration.

The painting Refugees by the Maltese artist Ray Piscopo reflects and embodies the pursuits of refuges fleeing their homelands.

The artist presented Metsola with the painting at the European Parliament Liaison Office in Valletta. 

Piscopo, renowned for his use of colour, says his aim with Refugees was to express the idea of the search for a promised land that guarantees freedom, joy and prosperity experienced by many refugees fleeing their homelands.

The painting is said to encode the many layers of emotions surrounding the event of escape that many migrants face.

The figures highlight a rough atmosphere- Ray Piscopo

“Those emotions are today felt by the people fleeing from their homes, fighting against oppression. They are the same emotions that have accompanied and continue to accompany human masses out of Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and today also from Ukraine,” says Piscopo.

Piscopo says his painting “gives life” to a chaotic mass of silhouettes with pop echoes depicted in the painting.

“The figures, moving on an amber background interspersed with reddish flashes, highlight a rough atmosphere. They lose the individual features of genders and ethnicities and are instead standardised under a linear, decisive and marked trait, by the same moods and feelings,” he explains.

The artist emphasises that the lack of detail present in the painting is meant to highlight the universal emotions of fear, despair and uncertainty that unites every migrant into a single multitude.