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02/ 04Collection · 4 works

ROOTS — Where Memory Becomes Color

Work rooted in memory, landscape, and the Guatemalan spirit.

The collection

Before the street, before the color, there was the land. ROOTS is the most personal collection in Diego Palencia's body of work — a return to memory, landscape, and the quiet, enduring spirit of Guatemala. These original paintings grow from somewhere deep: the shape of a mountain remembered, the feeling of a place, the texture of a culture carried in the body long after you've left the room it lived in.

Where other work reaches outward, ROOTS turns inward. The pieces are organic and emotional, built from natural forms and the slow accumulation of feeling rather than spectacle. Acrylic is layered, scraped back, and rebuilt on canvas until the surface itself holds a kind of history — earthy and alive, vibrant yet grounded. This is contemporary art from Guatemala that does not borrow its identity; it remembers it.

For collectors, ROOTS offers something increasingly rare: work with a genuine sense of place. These are not generic abstractions but paintings tied to a specific land and a specific life — the Guatemalan landscapes, the human connection, the raw beauty of creation that has driven Diego's practice since 2013. To collect original art from this series is to bring home a fragment of that memory, translated into color and movement.

Every painting is a one-of-a-kind original, signed by the artist and delivered with a certificate of authenticity. Each is made by hand in his Guatemala City studio, and no two pieces repeat. What you acquire is singular — the only one of its kind in the world.

These works carry a stillness that grows on you over time, rewarding the kind of collector who lives with a piece rather than simply displaying it. Explore the available originals, and reach out to acquire a work or discuss a commission rooted in your own story. Each painting ships worldwide, fully insured, ready to take root in your space. ROOTS is an invitation to slow down — and to hold something real.

Works in ROOTS

  1. Spirit of the Forest, original abstract acrylic portrait by Diego Palencia merging the human form with a tree in warm reds and earthy greens.

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    Spirit of the Forest

    2023 · 120 × 100 cm · Acrylic on Canvas

    A powerful abstract portrait merging the human form with the living energy of a tree.

    Available$2,400
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  2. Totem, original acrylic painting by Diego Palencia of a tribal mask in neon yellow, red, green and blue on inky black.

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    Totem

    2019 · 51 × 40 cm · Acrylic on Canvas

    A tribal mask painted in neon — yellow, red, green, blue locked into the inky black.

    Available$850
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  3. Ganesha, original acrylic mandala painting by Diego Palencia in saffron and sky-blue with a halo of lotus petals.

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    Ganesha

    2018 · 35 × 28 cm · Acrylic on Canvas

    The remover of obstacles, painted in soft mandala.

    Sold
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  4. She Is Everything, original acrylic portrait by Diego Palencia, a face carved from rust, teal, lemon and rose flowing color.

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    She Is Everything

    2019 · 90 × 60 cm · Acrylic on Canvas

    A portrait carved from color — rust, teal, lemon, and rose flowing across a face that looks straight back.

    Available$1,700
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Looking for something specific, or a piece made for your space? Diego accepts select commissions.