If Chisin could step into a time capsule and find himself in Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salon in the early 20th century, he would have seamlessly joined the conversation—speaking fluent French, passionately discussing the interplay between art, philosophy, and existence. Yet even in these dialogues, his mind would drift to his own work, reflecting on his next blue brushstroke, the pigment he pursues with an almost obsessive devotion.

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Born to French intellectuals, themselves the children of Holocaust survivors, Chisin’s life was uprooted at the age of four when his family immigrated to Israel in 1977. This displacement was the first in a series of ruptures that shaped his identity, forging a soul divided—one that speaks in a brutal dialect of intellect and survival, of culture and violence, of life and loss.

As a child, he roamed the streets of Jerusalem, absorbing the weight of his father’s words—an esteemed university professor—and observing his neighbor, Tverski, who sat motionless in his garden, as if the world demanded nothing of him. Years later, Tverski would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, while Chisin found himself on a different path, one that led him into the heart of war.