On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The video of Floyd's death traveled around the world and helped ignite a racial justice movement of extraordinary scale, producing protests throughout the United States and in cities across the globe. The words "I can't breathe" became both an indictment and a demand.

Minneapolis became the geographic center of a conversation that was no longer only about one city, one police department, or even one country. Demonstrations inspired by Floyd's murder were echoed in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere, where protesters connected his death to their own histories of racism, policing, state violence, and inequality.

Eleven months later, the world returned its attention to Minneapolis for the trial of Derek Chauvin.

On April 20, 2021, Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts. The verdict was broadcast internationally and drew responses from heads of government, civil-rights organizations, the United Nations, activists, and communities far beyond the United States. It represented accountability in one case, but neither those gathered outside the courthouse nor many of those responding around the world regarded it as the completion of the larger struggle for justice.

Walking on Air occupies an unusual position within that history.

It was not created months or years afterward from memory, photographs, or historical research. The canvas was physically present outside the courthouse while the outcome remained unknown. Its first marks were made under the possibility of another disappointment. Its later marks were made after the verdict had transformed the emotional atmosphere surrounding it.

Some works respond to history. Walking on Air was physically present as history unfolded.

The painting therefore carries two records at once: the uncertainty that preceded the verdict and the extraordinary release that followed it.