Childhood in War
2024, Soft pastel on Pastelmat board, 30 × 42 cm

No child should live like this. Not now, not ever.

What is happening to these children is not politics or strategy — it is cruelty. Nothing justifies the death of a child.

We have the resources and intelligence to live in peace, yet we choose destruction. While leaders wage wars from safety, innocent lives are left to suffer. Children grow up in rubble, where fear becomes their lullaby and trauma their childhood, only to be reduced to the words “collateral damage.”

We judge their anger, their scars, their fear, but rarely admit the truth: we gave them nothing else to learn from.

We expect innocence from children who were never allowed to have one.

While others played, they ran.

While others dreamed, they hid.

While others felt safe, they counted bombs.

This portrait is a quiet reflection on innocence stolen by war — and a reminder that every child deserves safety, dignity, and a childhood free from violence.

Adrian Hudson