Artworks

Devan Shimoyama

American, b. 1989

Untitled (For Trayvon), 2020

Silk flowers, beads, and rhinestones on fabric with steel mount and frame

48 x 76 in. (121.92 x 193.04 cm)

© Devan Shimoyama, courtesy of the artist and Kavi Gupta

Trayvon Martin was walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012, when he was assaulted and murdered by George Zimmerman, a self-styled “neighborhood watch” figure who, moments before, had reported Martin, in a call to police, as “suspicious.” The hoodie Martin was wearing and the bag of Skittles he was carrying at the time of his murder became a focal point and rallying cry of national protests that followed the incident itself as well as the exoneration that Zimmerman received from the justice system.

As in Untitled (For Tamir), installed nearby, Shimoyama does not depict the hoodie as something sinister — a marker of evil to be repaid with evil — but as a symbol of personality and personalization.