Where Light Still Waits

For serious inquiries regarding the purchase of this original painting, please contact directly ottawavalleyartstudio@gmail.com

Price is $350+TAX

Original painting by Iya Carson

Certificate of Authenticity

Media: Watercolour

Paper: 100% cotton, Baohong, Rough, 300 g

Paints: Daniel Smith

Size:  15.5 x 15.5 (40 cm x 40 cm)

Year: 2025

Place: Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada

Where Light Still Waits
From the In-between series

“Where Light Still Waits” explores the emotional terrain of displacement, the silent tension between fear and hope, between unfamiliar streets and the fragile promise of home. The painting depicts a modest house illuminated against a dark, textured landscape, its solitary window glowing like a beacon within a vast and indifferent night.

The work draws from a deeply personal memory: in her early days in Canada, the artist found herself lost after an evening English class, carried by the wrong bus into a neighbourhood she had never seen. With a dead phone, no one to ask for help, and only the instinct to keep moving, that winter night became a landscape of vulnerability and uncertainty. Hours later, upon finally finding her way back, the front door opened to her husband’s warm embrace and a cup of hot chocolate –  a simple, profound moment of safety and belonging.

The painting stands at the intersection of these experiences: the anxiety of navigating the unknown, and the tenderness of being welcomed home. It speaks to the broader immigrant journey, where identity transitions in the shadows between past and present, unfamiliar and familiar. “Where Light Still Waits” offers a quiet affirmation that even through confusion, fear, and dislocation, there are places  and people, who anchor us, guiding us back to ourselves.