The Gaze of My Mother was born from a moment of deep sorrow, an inner journey marked by the irreparable loss of my mother. Each stroke, each shadow in this piece tells a personal story of transformation through pain, of a profound yearning for freedom, colored by the weight of an absence that can never be filled. This is the starting point, the foundation of shadows from which the artwork emerges.

In the midst of those initial strokes, my mother’s gaze became the axis around which transmutation revolves. As the lines took shape, the pain transformed into something new: a smiling woman, standing before the majestic Paris, her gaze full of admiration, as if she were witnessing a fulfilled achievement, a dream come true. This is the transformation I sought, the conversion of sadness into a celebration of love and admiration, of hope and yearning.

Paris, the land of love and excellence, becomes the stage for this transmutation. What begins in darkness rises toward the light, toward a state of peace and love, where profound suffering meets profound love, and both cancel each other out at a zero point, in a delicate balance that is both stillness and movement. Here, the piece not only captures the dichotomy between love and suffering, but unites them, turning them into a new state of being, where sadness dissolves into the beauty of creation.

At its core, this piece is a tribute to what I could never reach: the gaze of pride from my mother, a gaze I imagined, that I dreamed of, but that never came. However, that gaze becomes tangible, eternalized under the charcoal strokes. I did not paint the pain, I did not want to capture the tears that so longed to flow; instead, I chose to paint what my heart wishes to expand: love, celebration, and achievement. This is my tribute, not only to my mother, but to all those emotions that, though never materialized, live in the artwork as an indelible signature.