A couple of green paint swirls fill a small canvas. Does this work of modern art represent fertility? The futility of existence? Or perhaps, just the intelligence of a trained bird and the patient biologist who gave her a brush.

Meet Iris, one of the National Zoo’s ravens. With food as a reward, biologist Rebecca Sturniolo spent months teaching her how to paint.

According to a Q&A in National Zoo News, the process began with getting Iris used to the canvas, because ravens “can be wary or afraid of new things,” according to Sturniolo. The biologist would keep the canvas in Iris’ exhibit during feeding time. While Iris feared the paintbrush at first, she quickly got used to it.

As you can see in the video, Sturniolo prompts Iris by saying “paint” and pointing at the canvas. When the bird does as instructed, she gets frozen-thawed mice, hardboiled egg, meat, and insects.

Sturniolo is hoping to next train Iris how to put paint on the brush and choose her own colors. The bird might also learn how to recycle or stack objects.

While ravens were spotted in the wild in D.C. for the first time in a century, don’t expect them to become avian Picassos any time soon—male raven Chogan was rescued by the Zoo from the wild two years ago and ” is probably a ways off from learning how to paint,” says Sturniolo.