While visiting the Thank God I’m home: First Meal exhibition, I experienced many emotions and empathy for people I never knew. Julie Green moved me with her art, and made me realize just how unfair and ruthless our society is today. The two pieces of art that I felt personally most connected with was At Home With Family, 2021 and Holding Orange for Jason Strong 2018. Both these paintings spoke to me, and allowed me to gain insight on the way innocent people were wrongly treated.
At Home With Family, 2021 was the first painting that caught my eye. The beautiful colors and fantasy-like drawing of something so real compelled me to learn more. The artwork shows A Black male having dinner with his family for the first time after being wrongly accused of murder and sent to jail for years. The man in the picture was sent to jail, and forced to waste countless years of his life for a crime that he didn’t commit. Behavior like this accurately represents racism in our society today. You would think through many years of working towards equality that racism would be nonexistent today. However this painting demonstrates otherwise, and sadly this is the reality for many Black people. Julie Green writes next to the painting, “I have no idea how it feels to be Black male and no idea how it feels to be wrongfully imprisoned. I do know Blacks are seven times more likely to be wrongfully accused of murder. I can imagine how foreign and surreal it must feel to go home after such an ordeal.” Imagine going to jail, leaving your family and missing out on years of your life for something that you didn’t do. This goes to show that society is too quick to judge, and racism still affects many lives today. Law enforcement clearly does not do a good job convincing people of crime, because this issue still happens today. This painting raises awareness on racism, and gives insight on how good people just want the same thing in life. We all want to spend time with our family, share meals, thoughts and our minds with the people that we love. However social injustice makes this harder than it has to be. I love the colors used in At Home With Family, 2021, they look eerie and beautiful at the same time. To me, the eeriness of the dark purple represents the pain and suffering many people go through because of racism. The gold beautifully contradicts the purple, and represents love and happiness found within spending life with the people you love. Looking in on the family painted in the picture, makes me realize how many things I take for granted. A home-cooked meal and spending time with family is something that you should never take for granted. Unfortunately people miss out on these pleasures due to social injustice, and I hope this changes soon.
Another favorite of mine from the exposition was Holding Orange for Jason Strong 2018. The writing next to the painting spoke to me, as it went into detail about Jason Strong holding an orange for 40 minutes after it was given to him by a waitress. This was after he just got out of jail for a wrongly accused of murder conviction. The quote next to the painting states “After 15 years in prison, Jason Strong mentions a waitress bringing a gift of an orange, holding it for 40 minutes, first orange in eight years.” It was the first orange that Jason Strong had in eight years. The story makes me realize how many things I take for granted, and the many privileges I have. Unfortunately many people don’t have the same privilege as me, and this is something that needs to change. These people wrongly convicted of murder will never get back the time that they lost within their lives. The fact that a good man could be sent to prison for 15 years just because of his skin color is heartbreaking. Julie Green's work poses as an activist, by representing the need for change and social justice within America. I love how in this painting, the plate is filled with the things that represent Jason Strong's home state. You can see all of the things that he might feel connected to or identify with. This painting makes me realize how similar we all are, and how we all can find comfort and beauty within the world around us. It is heartbreaking that this right is so wrongly taken from innocent people. Just like Thank God I’m home: First Meal, this artwork reminds me not to take anything for granted, and to keep working for a change for these beautiful people.
The way that racism and social injustice has affected countless innocent lives needs to change. The fact that people get sent to jail for crimes they didn’t commit says a lot about society today. The artwork of Julie Green does a great job representing the lives of these beautiful innocent people that never deserved what they went to. This artwork inspires me to work for a change for the people like Julie Green has painted about.
(other mandatory quotes were provided in my blog post from last week, I did the essay separate)
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