The painting embodies the artist's expressive and emotional response to the major refugee crisis, during which large numbers of people, particularly from Africa and the Middle East (Syria), fled to Europe. The central motive of the work is a bent, deformed figure, torn by the awareness of its fate and caught within the structure of a fence it is attempting to climb. The fence metaphorically separates two culturally and socially distinct worlds. The hands are raised to the sky in a gesture of desperate plea. A historical moment of injustice and solidarity is metaphorically transformed into an allusion to a timeless biblical theme.