4/26/25

 

I painted Walking on Air just outside the Government Center in Minneapolis, where the Derek Chauvin trial was held for the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.

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When the court date was announced, I knew I had to create—right there, among the people and the rawness of the moment. I thought I’d be painting in the middle of what I call a “loverising”—what others call an uprising—because history had conditioned me to expect a letdown. Time and again, justice has fallen short for Black lives in America, even in the face of the undeniable.

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As news of the verdict approached, I began painting the pain I knew too well—deep reds, shadowed hues. But when the guilty verdict was announced, something shifted. A collective exhale swept through the streets. Joy rang out in honks, cheers, and tearful celebration. My brush responded instinctively, reaching for oranges, blues, and radiant tones—symbols of release, hope, and a flicker of justice.

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Since then, the response to Walking on Air has moved me. People across the country have reached out—thanking me for painting what they felt but couldn’t say. They've called it a mirror of their grief, their hope, their cautious relief. Many have compared its emotional power to Picasso’s Guernica—a painting that bore witness to a massacre and helped the world feel the horror of war. Like Guernica, this work documents a historical moment that must not be forgotten. And it serves as the first page of a new day.

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As we approach the five year anniversry of George Floyd’s death, Walking on Air remains both a memory and a message. Art must carry truth forward—especially when the world tries to move on. This painting reminds us what it meant, if only for a moment, to breathe.

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                                                                                                                                                 seangarrison