“Memories” is a true story about an Iraqi fighter pilot who was captured by ISIS. I got in touch with this man through a good friend from the US who studied to be a pilot with him. We arranged a facetime meeting and talked for around two hours. He moved me deeply. Not only his story but also him as a person. A beautiful and calm soul that had gone through brutal things in life, but was now in a very good place. He wants to stay anonymous. He told me the story of how he was captured, tortured and then thrown into a dungeon with other prisoners. They were told when they would be killed and how. They were just sitting there waiting for the day to come. Every day jailers came down to the dungeon to pick up one soldier to kill. And every day they would come back to show the dead body to the other prisoners so that they could see what was waiting for them. I asked the difficult question, “if and how did you manage to use humor in such a dark place?” And he answered, “the human mind works like this - when you know you are going to die, you want to tell someone your story. And mostly, the happy sides of your story”. Because of his calming, trustworthy and listening nature, he became the person in the group of prisoners that everybody used as a sort of therapist and they told him their story. And they laughed. This painting tries to reflect him sitting there with his mind and thoughts, his head hidden under a bag that jailers had placed on him. He is listening to his friend who is laughing while telling his life story and holding his own skull in his hand, knowing he will die. His neck is already half-cut and bleeding, but still good memories make him laughing. Fun emerges even in the darkest places.