Although living through a pandemic brings isolation, uncertainty, anxiety and fear, it also brings us closer to ourselves and the small things in the natural world around us we may have missed when the world moved faster and roared louder. On one lonely late afternoon, I watched a large black bird fly vigorously around the dusty sky above me – it flung itself around as if its soul was bursting to leave its feathered body. I felt empathy for the bird’s turmoil, and an envy of its freedom of movement.

The sweeping, calligraphic brush strokes in this woodblock print represent the chaotic and beautiful movements of this black bird against the backdrop of a wintery canvas dappled with light filtering through leafy trees.

– Seong Cho