“The Death of Pablo Escobar” shows the leader of the notorious Medellín drugs cartel being fatally shot. It’s an online image of a painting by the Colombian artist, Fernando Botero. Botero is from Medellín – also the hometown of Pablo Escobar. 

In portrait orientation, painted in 1999, it’s in Botero’s signature, cartoonish style, with Escobar - “The King of Cocaine” - portrayed in exaggerated proportions, balancing precariously on the pan-tiled rooftop of a house. It’s one of many houses packed closely together that spread towards lumpy moss-green mountains on the horizon, under a cloudy dark grey sky. But it is the only house to have a chimney pumping out white smoke. Escobar, much bigger than the house on which he’s standing, takes up most of the image. 

He’s facing us, holding up a pistol in his right hand, aiming at the sky while his left palm is held up level with his chest as if to fend off a hail of black bullets that stream towards him and past him like a swarm of insects. He wears black trousers and a white shirt. The shirt is untucked and unbuttoned, as if pulled on in haste over his flabby body and he is barefoot, his delicate toenails glinting a surprising pink. His feet are tanned but the skin of his chest, hands and jowly, bestubbled face, is a sickly yellow. His eyes are closed. A red droplet in the middle of his forehead suggests that one bullet has already met its mark, and other wounds fleck his chest and bulging stomach. He has a thatch of brown hair and a moustache and his body twists in a final dance of death.

Standing on terracotta roof tiles, a figure in the style of Fernando Botero dominates this dramatic composition. The painting uses present action to convey intense movement - the figure arches backward, his white dress shirt falling open to reveal his rounded torso marked by small crimson wounds. His bare feet grip the tiles as his body contorts in response to incoming bullets, which appear as dark shapes suspended in the gray sky. In his upraised right hand, he clutches a pistol, while his left hand presses against his chest in a gesture of pain. His face, with eyes tightly shut and mouth grimacing, expresses profound agony. The artist employs Botero's characteristic volumetric style, giving the figure an exaggerated, sculptural quality.

Below the figure stretches a Mediterranean townscape - densely packed houses with orange-tiled roofs cascade down gentle green hills. The houses feature white walls and small windows, creating a pattern of warm earth tones. The sky, painted in muted grays, adds an ominous atmosphere that contrasts with the warm colors below. The composition creates diagonal movement from the bottom right to the top left, emphasizing the figure's dramatic pose.

The painting combines elements of violence with theatrical presentation, freezing a moment of crisis. Through careful positioning, the artist places viewers directly on the rooftop with the figure, creating an immediate sense of danger and drama. The exaggerated style transforms what could be a purely violent scene into something more complex - both tragic and somehow dreamlike.