The Incredible Journey of Corazon Volador: Coincidence or Message from Hereafter?

I’m not a professional art collector—just an ordinary admirer of beautiful things. A bit of a treasure hunter. I wander through Japan Surplus shops here in the Philippines as often as I can, drawn not only by the possibility of finding something rare but by the strange, quiet magic these places seem to carry. Each item holds echoes of a life once lived. Discarded porcelain, faded kimonos, delicate lacquerware—all packed into shipping containers and sent across the sea. All of it waiting.

In September 2023, I stepped into one warehouse in the thick warmth of a dusky afternoon. It was cluttered, quiet, and drowsy with still air. I hadn’t planned to visit that day, but something nudged me there. Call it instinct. Call it fate.

A painting caught my eye among the stacks of forgotten frames and half-wrapped ceramics. It was leaning against a splintered cabinet, half-hidden in shadow. The colors, though dulled by dust, pulsed with an inexplicable energy. I felt wholly and instantly certain: this was no reproduction. This was an original, and it was meant to be found. The signature “Patrone” was upside down, which led us to hold the painting upside down in the first place. Lizz was a bit scared by it as she saw that the woman was falling. So Lizz begged me to put this painting far from our staircase.

It was clear that I wanted to learn more about the painting, its name, and its creator.

Back home, I began my search. I quickly discovered the artist’s name—Virginia Patrone, a celebrated painter born in 1950 in Montevideo, Uruguay. A figure of quiet yet profound influence in the contemporary Latin American art world, Patrone’s work is known for its psychological depth, dreamlike symbolism, and strong narrative voice. Her paintings often explore themes of intimacy, femininity, memory, and transformation, drawing on literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic currents. Her visual language is at once personal and archetypal—delicate, but never fragile.

She studied art at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo and began exhibiting her work in the 1970s. During Uruguay’s years of dictatorship, her work provided a subtle yet subversive commentary on identity and emotional survival. Over the decades, her reputation grew steadily within Uruguay and abroad. Today, she is especially established in Uruguay and Spain, and currently lives and works in Barcelona, where she continues to create work infused with introspection and mythic resonance.

But the painting itself—the one I held in my hands—remained a mystery. I couldn’t find its title anywhere and didn’t want to risk damaging the sealed frame to investigate. I sifted through online archives and museum posts, including one from the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales de Montevideo—still, nothing.

So I did something I rarely do. I reached out—directly—to the artist herself.

I found her on social media, sent a respectful message, and attached a photo of the painting. I expected silence or a polite, distant reply. Instead, I received a message filled with warmth, joy, and an electric recognition.

Virginia Patrone was deeply moved by my message. What she shared next sent chills down my spine.

Only six days before I found the painting—on September 10, 2023—she had posted two new works in memory of her beloved friend and patron, Ms. Hisako Oya of Tokyo. Ms. Oya had referred to herself as Virginia’s “Japanese mother,” born on the same day as Virginia’s mother, in the same year. Their bond was personal and symbolic, as if the universe had stitched them together with threads from another realm.

Their first meeting had the quality of myth:

Ms. Oya, visiting an exhibition in San Diego with the Japanese ambassador to Uruguay, discovered Virginia’s work. Soon after, Virginia was invited—seemingly out of the blue—to the Japanese Embassy in Montevideo. There, she was handed an invitation and plane tickets to exhibit at Tokyo’s Metropolitan Art Museum. The costs, she would learn, had all been covered by Ms. Oya.

Every painting was sold at that exhibition, except one.

Virginia had personally carried one piece to Tokyo. A gift. A thank-you. A tribute.

That painting was called “Corazon Volador” (Flying Heart).

And that is the painting I now sit with, still cloaked in its timeworn frame, humming softly with its history.

She told me something still lingers: her work has resonated deeply with Germans and Japanese viewers. So for me—a German—to stumble upon this exact piece, tucked away in a forgotten surplus warehouse at the very edge of the Philippines, is more than chance. The container carrying the painting had just arrived from Japan days before, as if it had traveled oceans to find me.

Most visitors to these shops hunt for frames, not the stories behind them. If the image isn’t appealing, it’s often discarded. And yes, this frame is chipped. A bit broken, even. But the painting inside—this quiet Flying Heart—radiates something you can’t explain. A soul, perhaps. Or a whisper from the past.

There’s no logical reason I should have found it. I wasn’t supposed to be there that day. I had taken a wrong turn, had an hour to spare, felt a nudge I couldn’t ignore.

But I believe that some things don’t need reasons. Invisible hands guide some things. A flying heart, after all, does not move in straight lines—it moves in spirals and circles, carried by winds we cannot see.

So here I sit, thousands of miles from Tokyo, Montevideo, and Barcelona, in a small room in the southern Philippines, writing these words to you. Next to me, resting in soft light, is a painting that crossed time, oceans, and sorrow to find its way home—not where it came from, but where it was always meant to be.

The circle has closed in a way that reconnects the painting to its creator due to its incredible journey and the friendship it created across continents.