Medium: Acrylic on canvas

September 2026

30x40 cm

Availability: Original and prints available

Little Candles Back Home draws on the artist’s childhood memories of Día de las Velitas, a Colombian tradition when families and neighbours fill streets, doorsteps and homes with candles and colourful faroles.

At the centre, a child plays hopscotch, wearing the frilled white ankle socks characteristic of the 1990s. Around her, different fragments of memory come together: neighbours gather in the street, faroles are lit, and people share arepas and buñuelos, foods closely associated with everyday life and festive gatherings in Colombia. A small yellow taxi in the distance references the distinctive taxis familiar across Colombia and other parts of Latin America.

Among the figures are the artist’s father and grandmother, placing a personal family memory within the wider neighbourhood celebration. The dogs further blur the boundaries of time: the artist’s childhood Pomeranian appears alongside one of her present-day dogs, bringing past and present into the same imagined moment.

Rather than recreating one particular night, the painting assembles details from different memories into a single scene. Family, food, animals and familiar traditions become fragments through which childhood is remembered,capturing not exactly how the past looked, but how back home continues to exist in memory.