POWERFUL

In downtown LA there is a giant mural composition by Mark Bradford called 150 Portrait Tone. It contains elements of both abstraction and realism,  based on an idea for a work that the artist conceived after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Saint Paul, Minnesota.


In July 2016. Castile, an elementary school worker, was shot after being pulled over in his car—an incident that was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. The mural transcribes her pleas for understanding. 


 Not immediately readable, it tragically  brings humanity, digital technology, and art into a focus so sharp it is almost too hard to bear.