A picture says a thousand words, and these paintings say racial inequality needs to end.
Local artist Jourdan McGowan paints a picture of racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement through his art show “Painted Faces.”
“I wanted to do something about what was going on with the Black Lives Matter and everything that was going on in the world,” McGowan said. “I thought ‘why not do a show to represent and promote things that need to be seen in the art world’ – and not just in the art world but everywhere.”
The show, which has been displayed in Filter Coffee Parlor throughout September, features portraits of black icons from George Floyd to Lebron James.
Derrick Moten has been friends with McGowan for over ten years and said that the portraits McGowan painted were of those that inspired him.
“I feel like a lot of pieces he just found inspiration in,” Moten said. “Everyone that he painted in there was someone that affected his life and that kind of changed him a little bit, and you can tell that from the way he painted them.”
McGowan said he hoped that by showing the paintings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that he could grab people’s attention and get them thinking.
“I wanted to make a piece that not only grabbed attention,” McGowan said, “but made you think ‘why does the piece look like that’, ‘why are there bullet holes in the canvas’ or ‘why did the artist paint it like that?’ It was intentional to grab attention and make people think about their own outlook about what’s going on and to just talk about it.”
The paintings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are not just regular portrait images. The painting of Breonna Taylor has eight actual bullet holes in the canvas to represent how many times she was shot by police while in her home, and red paint dripping from the holes to imitate blood.
McGowan said he took the canvas to the shooting range and used a real gun to make the holes.
“The painting was already done when I shot it,” McGowan said. “I was shooting above the head, but even shooting where her image is, it just made me think ‘wow, is this how they felt when they were shooting in her home?’ I heard the sound [of the gun]that I’m sure she heard before she died. It was very emotional.”
Besides feeling the power of shooting the gun and the emotional response of shooting near Taylor’s head, McGowan said he felt irony.
“I thought it was ironic that I had to be so precise shooting the canvas so that I didn’t break the stretcher or shoot her face,” McGowan said. “But in real life, when the police shot her, they weren’t precise at all. It was just free-for-all gunfire in her home.”
George Floyd’s portrait also has a non-traditional take. His face isn’t filled in all the way and the canvas is covered by a big, red X.
This was another purposeful decision made by McGowan, who said he felt it best illustrated the point he was trying to make.
“His portrait is only halfway done because it represents that his life was taken prematurely, before it was finished,” McGowan said. “There is a huge X across the canvas that goes through the painted portion of his face to say that you can take somebody’s life, you can try to erase them from the living, but what’s done is already done, you can’t erase them or X them out. What happened to him is going to be something that we forever think about.”
Ricardo Maston initially met McGowan when he commissioned him for a piece of art, and, since then, Maston has commissioned McGowan for six other paintings and the two have become like family. Maston said McGowan’s “Painted Faces” show has a direct purpose and a powerful message.
“I think he’s trying to show social injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole,” Maston said. “I think he’s trying to express that through art because everyone loves art, no matter what race.”
The “Painted Faces” show is the second solo show McGowan has ever done. In fact, he never picked up a paint brush until five years ago, when he was a junior in college and decided to take art as an elective.
“I used to try to draw when I was younger, but I wasn’t very good,” McGowan said. “I was about as good as any other typical fourth grader. It was something that I was interested in, but I was busy doing other things. I took that [art]class and I guess my professor saw something in me that I didn’t. She told me should thought I could be an art major.”
McGowan decided to try it for a semester, and said at first, he wanted to quit.
“I tried it out and it was very hard because I didn’t know what I was doing,” McGowan said. “I kind of wanted to quit at first, but I kept going and I finally just did everything my teacher said and started to come to the responsibility of being an actual student. And in one semester, everything turned around. I started to become good.”
Maston said he thinks McGowan’s inspiration for his art is just to make others happy.
“He is definitely one of those guys that tries to make everyone happy,” Maston said. “It definitely shows through his commission work. A lot of those paintings are very personal to his customers and every customer I’ve seen him work with is very happy [with the art]. They sometimes cry and get excited about the painting and that makes his day better.”
Moten met McGowan in high school and said that McGowan was always creative.
“He’s always liked to express himself through different outlets,” Moten said. “He has a fashion mind and a special eye for detail. I think he found a challenge in art because that’s not something you can just pick up a paintbrush and do. A couple paintings he told me he did in less than 30 minutes. You can’t just pick it up and do that, it’s something that takes skill and it challenged him.”
McGowan graduated college in 2017 and opened his own art studio, Art of Truth, in 2018. He said he is still learning, and things are going well.
Maston said he thinks McGowan has put Birmingham “back on the map” for art and is going to do big things.
“Jourdan is an awesome guy. He’s very thoughtful and I don’t even have the words to describe the guy. He’s just a great guy and I think this is just the beginning for him and I think he is going to be something very important one day.”
