gallery response

When I went into the gallery for the lemmerman exhibit I was amazed at the spectacle of the artwork of the pieces of how the artist used the life of inmates to create a story of experiences and knowledge of what it is like within the prison system. In the piece Huwe Burton Said Truth Freed Me, Music Kept Me Sane While I Waited, 2019. This art piece depicted two sides and two colors of red and blue. For me I saw on the red side a man in pain in the courtroom because he was being sentenced to serve time in jail. The pain depicted on his face told the whole story for me on how his experience was going to be in pain for a very long time. I saw a man that had no idea how to deal with this traumatizing news. On the blue side I am still not sure what I saw but I think it is some kind of safe haven for him. I saw a tree and some kind of monastery and I took this to mean this was either something he would picture while he was in jail to keep him sane or this is something he visited when he got out and it is based out of New York. At the top it has a badge that red rooster Harlem, it could also possibly mean something from his past that he tries to remember or he cannot wait to go back to. A lot of things came to me while I looked at this painting and I was instantly connected to it but the title is what finally helped me put it all together. Truth freed me, music kept me sane while I waited. I didn’t initially read the description because that was such a powerful title because the truth in the end finally did set him free but it was music that kept him holding onto the hope that one day he will finally be free. He waited a lot of years to be free and music was one thing that kept him afloat. Music is such a beautiful thing and it definitely plays a huge factor in my life so I understand how in prison it was a big thing to him. So this painting is about how Huwe Burton is describing his first meal of squash lasagna at the red rooster in Harlem, New York. Also Burton was only 16 in 1991 when policed coerced a confession out of him for the murder of his own mother. This mural clearly shows injustice within the system.

This art piece was titled Burger, fries, and ice cream and Dairy Queen. When I first saw this piece it brought me back to memories of when I was a child and the great memories of Dairy Queen I didn’t really understand until I read what it meant to the artist and the super important message. This was the artist's first meal during a wave of hate crimes against Asian Americans. This piece just demonstrates another injustice and important social message that this artist shares with an audience by putting his piece out on display.