Bill Gaskins In the Name of The Law AZ House Bill 2281, 2014
In 2013 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed AZ House Bill 2281. AZ House Bill 2281 bans and declares any K-12 academic material considered to possess so-called 'ethnic studies' content or "promotes resentment" as divisive, anti-American and illegal. This portrait in diptych depicts a black female student in a library holding a copy of Delia's Tears Race, Science, and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America by Molly Rodgers. Delia's Tears would be a banned book in the state of Arizona K-12 school system.
I wanted to create a portrait with narrative content that would raise questions about its circumstances and offer an interpretation of the increased role of states rights and the increased policing of American citizens in the twenty-first century.