Name: La Abuela

Author: Laura Gil

Year: 2021

Technique: Digital Painting

Size: 3898×5669 Pixels – 300 dpi

This digital painting is born from the experience that my grandmother, Maria Ismenia Rojas. The woman who I represent in this piece is that woman who arrives displaced because of the armed conflict or domestic violence that my grandmother suffered (she arrived at the age of 4 years old together with her older sisters escaping from the violence that her father used to inflict on her).

That is why I want to represent those women who come with hope in search of a better future for their children who they carry on their backs and teach them where they come from, what are their customs and traditions so as not to lose them so easily with the “new world”.

Surviving in this concrete city is not easy, as my grandmother says – “Mija, when I arrived they left me with a family I didn’t even know. I had to work there since I was 4 years old, cleaning and feeding the household. There a young lady taught me how to read, write and how to use the basic notions of mathematics (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing). I had to work for free in this space until I went to work with my sister Lilia.

When I had my children, the house we lived in was made of tile and wood, we endured hunger but to supply the necessities we went to the Corabastos square to look for good food in the garbage.
Until I got my own little ranch and I was able to offer my four children an education without forgetting where we came from and how we struggled to survive.”

Thanks to the purchase of this work, $75 will be donated to the Restaurando Futuro Foundation, whose objectives are to design, plan and implement social intervention projects that provide innovative solutions to mitigate the harmful effects associated with vulnerability in young people in the town of Tolima (Colombia).

These projects are focused on artistic and cultural development and promotion and new technologies.