Yearning for Wholeness

The first piece in this series, Family (2013), brought together a mother, father, and child as one heart. A decade later, after losing my mother in 2020 and nearly losing my father in 2021, I returned to that work searching for comfort, balance, and healing. Instead, I discovered that grief does not restore what has been lost. It changes us.

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The works that followed, Padre (2023), Madre (2023), and Hijo (2024), continue that story. Each portrait is connected to a circular form that may first appear to be a halo, but it represents something else entirely. It is an empty space, the place left by someone we love. It is the absence we carry with us, the part of ourselves that can never be replaced.

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In my culture, marigolds guide the spirits of our loved ones home during Día de los Muertos. Woven into each circle, they become a reminder that love continues long after loss. We remember. We celebrate. We call them home. Yet even in their presence, the emptiness remains.

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These works are about the quiet longing to feel whole again. The people we lose never stop shaping who we are. We learn to live around the spaces they leave behind, knowing our worlds are forever changed and that some pieces of our hearts can never be filled.