This painting explores the ""grass is greener over on the other side"" concept, it's about escapism and the dread of modern city living.
We can see our subject in his attempt to escape, went all the way to Antarctica, the only uninhabited continents by humans.
But there is no joy in his eyes and the gathering penguins tightly resemble crows of suited people scattering and moving around chaotically, similarly to a crowd's motion in open public spaces greenlit for pedestrians.

It is also about a type of strenuous effort that turns Sisyphean once we complete it. Sometimes we buckle ourselves over long periods of time to achieve a goal. We deem it worthwhile and life changing, only to find that when we get there we've wasted so much time and effort, so we fall into this depression and self-loathing, depriving us of any energy to change our lives in a better direction yet again. It becomes too hard to turn back or move in a different direction, because the effort that led us to the wrong path was too great, and there is also no telling if the new path will be an improvement on this error. This is what I'm trying to portray in the face and posture of our protagonist, a kind of hopelessness and exhaustion, emotional drainage.

The frozen wasteland in the background represents a mountain too hard to climb, another challenge too difficult to even turn around and face. There is a beauty in it, but one that is sublime. Too much for a mere broken mortal. The mass of the penguins doesn't offer consolation either. It's a force of nature in small packets that moves in a chaotic turbulence, just a living stream of little simple minds encircling our troubled protagonist like a river stream circles a rock in its midst.