KEONI

I began this piece in late June after attending a protest advocating Black Lives in Washington D.C. There, I heard a quote that stuck with me, clung to the bottom of my shoe like bubblegum, and followed me all the way back to Richmond.

With tears in his eyes and a catch in his throat, the protest leader said, "When I watched the video of George Floyd, I was praying he would make it home. I chanted it over and over again, man, just get up, please, get off him, make it home! Make it home! Make it home! But I'm starting to feel like making it home isn't enough anymore. This happens again and again. We need real change." Growing up black and in America, I have witnessed horrible, stinking accounts of racism that are rotted down to the fundamentals of this nation. This summer was hard, witnessing the death of yet another brother and feeling as though there's nothing I could do to inspire actual action. I needed to do something, though, so I painted. I painted what I was unable to find words for and what I wanted to represent about the situation. I wanted this piece to be a love letter to George Floyd, in a sense; to highlight all that was good about him. In various accounts, I found that he was a gentle man, the kind to never hurt a fly, and he was very tall, so I depicted him larger than the city in the background with the most docile expression -- Minneapolis's Gentle Giant. Minnesota stands in flames behind him to represent the quote above. Making it home isn't enough anymore, we must move forward and inspire real change in our nation. We cannot settle.