Ricardo Romero Cortez Duque

The Long Way Home Was Always a River / 36×36 / acrylic on canvas

** SOLD **

The story begins after the decision has already been made. The sky is wide and heavy with blue, layered like old promises that were meant well, even if they didn’t quite come true. Below it, the land stretches out—green, open, and patient—waiting without urgency.

A narrow river cuts through the field, not rushing, not hesitating. It knows where it’s going because it remembers where it came from. It bends gently, choosing the long way instead of the straight one, as if time itself were something to be savored rather than defeated. This is not a landscape of arrival, but of return.

The Long Way Home Was Always a River tells the story of realizing that progress doesn’t always look like speed. Sometimes it looks like following what moves naturally through you, trusting the quiet pull beneath the surface. The painting holds that moment when you stop forcing direction—and let the path reveal itself.