Yearning to Breathe Free

Yearning to Breathe Free
9" x 12"
Mixed media
2020



This past Friday night my wife and I were praying (virtually) with Temple Beth Israel of Fresno, listening to the words of Rabbi Rick Winer, when I had this idea: combining the grief we have at the words "I Can't Breathe" with the hope in these words from Emma Lazarus' poem, "The New Colossus" – found in its entirety at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

"Yearning to Breathe Free" is made with X-Men comics featuring Bishop – a mutant from the future who is the son of Aboriginal refugees who fled to America, where he was sent to a mutant concentration camp and branded with an "M" over his right eye, used to identify mutants in his era. Which is a lot of backstory, I know.

The words form a tight square on the lower half of a rectangular sheet – I wanted them to feel cramped and in need of release. And the all caps letters in multiple colors? We've seen a lot of that in the streets of America these days, so it's certainly got protest and pride as inspiration as well.

Black Lives Matter

Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof – Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue!
(Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:18)

#blacklivesmatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd

I Can’t Breathe
24" x 18"
Mixed media
2020

“I Can’t Breathe” is made of cut-up comic books and inspired by the death of George Floyd – and also the Ten Martyrs of the Jewish tradition, and the “Ayleh Ezkerah” poem from our High Holy Day machzor that reminds us to remember those that died in holy causes. I also referenced the Book of Lamentations – particularly thinking about how we represent and respond to tragedy. I’m also a big fan of Ben Shahn (mid-20th century social realist), and his illustrations are definitely an influence on the final form of this piece. Then, once cut, I filled it with cut-up comics books featuring Black super heroes: the wrongly-convicted Luke Cage, the monarch Black Panther, and the youthful Cloak. The color scheme of the figure is actually inspired by Luke Cage’s traditional super hero outfit. The last element in here that might benefit from explanation is the listing of place names in his shirt – taken from an ad for a series of comic book conventions around the country. I saw “Minneapolis” and instantly decided to incorporate it and the other cities, to represent that this is more than one man in one city, but a tragedy we have seen repeated so many times, to so many people, in so many cities.




UPDATE

Featured in the June 4, 2020, issue of LA Weekly.