RUI CARRUCO · 2026

The Time We Held Hands

Memória de um Verão

In this painting, I explore the delicate territory between childhood, memory and the passing of time. A mother and two children walk towards the sea — an ordinary, almost fleeting moment that may one day become a treasured memory.

I built the painting primarily with a palette knife, allowing texture and relief to remain visible across the canvas. The figurative scene is interrupted by geometric fragments and vertical divisions, as though the image itself were being reconstructed through memory. Rather than reproducing a photographic moment, I am interested in preserving the feeling that remains after it has passed.

Soft coastal colours, sunlight and the elongated shadows of the figures evoke the quiet warmth of a summer day. Yet the emotional centre of the painting lies in the simplest gesture: one hand holding another — a sign of closeness, protection and that brief period of childhood we often only fully appreciate once it has become a memory.

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