On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 concert-goers on the Las... Read More
On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 concert-goers on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. This painting does not depict the violence — it depicts what came after.
A father with two daughters huddle together in the foreground, heads bowed over a single flickering candle, a beloved stuffed lion beside them. Above them, dozens of luminous sky lanterns rise into a deep teal night, their amber glow reflected in the clouds over a city forever changed. In the far distance, the Las Vegas skyline sits quiet and small — a community reduced to its most human scale.
Each lantern is a soul. Each child represents the innocence that grief inherits. The single candle between them — fragile, persistent, alive — is everything that remains and refuses to be extinguished.
Lingling Zhao, a Las Vegas resident, painted this work as an act of remembrance and solidarity. It is her most locally rooted painting — a gift to the city that became her home, and to every family that carried October 1st forward into every day that followed.
