Bring Him
Home
Almost the entire image is wall. At its foot, a teddy bear reaches upward with a tiny red heart.
The difference in scale is the first thing the drawing asks us to feel. The masonry is immense, repetitive and impersonal. The bear is small enough to disappear inside it. Its gesture is quiet: a note is being placed between the stones of the Western Wall, following a centuries-old practice of leaving written prayers in its crevices.
The child never appears. That absence is the subject. The teddy bear stands in for someone who should be holding it, while the single red mark interrupts an otherwise black-and-white field. It is less an illustration of captivity than an image of waiting.
Bring Him Home was drawn soon after 7 October 2023. Rather than depict the attack, a hostage, a soldier or the war that followed, the drawing focuses on an object left behind.
On 7 October, a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and 251 people were abducted into Gaza, including children. The work emerged while families were still waiting for information about those taken and while the scale of the war that followed was rapidly expanding.
Two years later, speaking at the European Parliament, Alexandre Mitchell returned to the same idea when describing the work: it depicts “not rage but absence”. The image deliberately avoids spectacle. Its emotional centre is the missing person we cannot see.
The same composition, at a different physical scale
In 2026, the composition was drawn again at 75 × 110 cm. The image is not redesigned: the relationship between the wall, the bear and the small coloured heart is preserved. What changes is the viewer’s encounter with it.
At the larger scale, the masonry occupies more of the body’s field of vision. The bear remains visually small within the composition, but the ink, paper and painted heart become far more tangible at close range.
A work made inside an unfolding event
Historical art usually looks backwards. Bring Him Home was made before the event to which it responded had acquired anything like a settled history. Facts, numbers and the fate of individual hostages were still changing as the drawing was being made.
The attack of 7 October 2023 and the hostage-taking are now extensively documented. A United Nations commission recorded 251 people abducted into Gaza, among them civilians, children, older people and members of the Israeli security forces. Hostage-taking is prohibited under international humanitarian law, and the International Committee of the Red Cross repeatedly called for the immediate and unconditional release of those held and for humanitarian access to them.
The war beyond the image
Israel’s military response developed into a prolonged war in Gaza, bringing enormous Palestinian loss of life, mass displacement and destruction. The drawing does not attempt to represent that war either. Its original dedication extended in both directions: to the people taken hostage and to Palestinian civilians caught and killed in the conflict that followed.
Absence
No captive is shown. The missing child exists only through the toy that waits for a return.
Prayer
The bear performs a recognisable act at the Western Wall: inserting a written prayer between the stones.
Colour
The red heart is deliberately isolated. Against the black and white, a few millimetres of colour carry nearly all the emotional weight.
A private message in a public monument
Visitors to the Western Wall have long placed written prayers between the stones. Today the practice is so established that paper notes are distributed at the plaza and are periodically collected for respectful burial.
That ritual gives the drawing its structure. Monumental stone becomes the recipient of an intensely private request. The note is too small for us to read; the heart tells us enough.
The bear’s action transforms the wall from background into participant. It is not simply an image of Jerusalem. It is the surface to which the request is entrusted.
Exhibition history
- European Jewish Community Centre, Brussels8 December 2023 – 15 January 2024 · original drawing
- Full Circle, Brussels3 February – 25 April 2024 · original drawing
- Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation, Thessaloniki8 October – 10 November 2024 · lithograph
- Musée BIBLE+ORIENT, University of Fribourg25 March – 25 December 2025 · lithograph
- European Parliament, Brussels30 September 2025 · Members’ Salon · lithograph
Lithograph · 2024
A signed and numbered hand-printed lithograph was produced in 2024 by Bruno Robbe. Its 49 cm height is slightly different from the standard 50 × 35 cm format used elsewhere in the series.
Enquire about this editionHostages, war and the act of prayer
- United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, report on the treatment of hostages and detainees, recording 251 people abducted on 7 October 2023. Read the report.
- International Committee of the Red Cross, on hostages held in Gaza and the prohibition of hostage-taking under international humanitarian law. ICRC.
- Western Wall Heritage Foundation, visitor information and the practice of placing paper prayers between the stones. Visitor information.
- Western Wall Heritage Foundation, on the periodic collection and respectful burial of prayer notes. Prayer-note tradition.
- Alexandre Mitchell, speech at the European Parliament, 30 September 2025, describing Bring Him Home as an image of absence. Speech PDF.