Upside Down depicts a rather precarious situation for the owner of the legs that we see here.

But this is no high school prank on an innocent freshman. It’s a “visual metaphor for the uncertainty of everyday life in Iraq.” Heavy.

Alkadhi was born in Baghdad and hopped between England, United Arab Emirates and Iraq until the Gulf War forced him to emigrate to various countries, finally landing in New York. By the time Alkadhi was 23 years old, he had racked up enough life experience and material to last him a lifetime of art-making.

Upside Down is from a series titled “Hanging.” In terms of the vibe of the series, “Hanging” is more akin to “hanging in there” or “hanging by a thread” than, like, “hanging out with friends.” Along the margins of the work written in Arabic is an almost illegible (and definitely illegible if you can’t read Arabic) poem by the 10th-century Iraqi-born poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani, who wrote it while imprisoned in Constantinople. It is dedicated to a little bird that flew up to his cell window and translates to something like, “O neighbor, if you could only feel what I feel…you who have yet to taste pain and worries have never crossed your mind. Do you carry so much sadness in your heart .... while you stand on such a high branch?,” which is super intense and even more so if you apply it to the current condition of the Middle East. Things are only going to get worse due to the hatred of a certain angry little man-peach.