In 2014, the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and many other unarmed Black Americans at the hands of police ignited not only nationwide protests, but a larger examination of race in the United States.
In The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) VII, Titus Kaphar overlays a series of portraits, one on top of the other.
The finished drawing flashes between the individuals and a collective portrait, with the descriptive title and materials — asphalt and chalk — suggesting the outlines of victims at a crime scene.
The title of the work, The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) VII, alludes to Kaphar’s estranged father, Jerome, and it comes from a series the artist began in 2011.
While researching his father’s prison records, Kaphar was shocked to find that dozens of men shared his father’s first and last name.
Through his investigation of the pattern, Kaphar began creating portraits of the men after meeting them and learning about their lives and stories.
The collection of portraits in The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) VII were drawn from mug shots of these young, Black American men — addressing not only brutal and deadly force by law enforcement, but challenging the justice and prison system.
Kaphar’s practice has always addressed issues of race and representation, but The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) VII is as personal as it is political.
Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, Kaphar wrote, “I have given up trying to describe the feeling of knowing that I cannot be safe in the country of my birth.” Asking, “How do I explain to my children that the very system set up to protect others could be a threat to our existence? How do I shield them from the psychological impact of knowing that for the rest of our lives we will likely be seen as a threat, and for that, we may die?”
Influenced by the writings of Michelle Alexander and William Julius Wilson on the prison-industrial complex and the abuse of policing and imprisonment, Kaphar’s work is an indictment of the economic, social, and political problems that the United States faces.
