Project Overview

This product represents the work of one student – in this case a student from Meadow Brook High School, Chesterfield County, Virginia. Each portrait depicts a figure from black history. The student who created these portraits was a talented artist who transformed his graffiti art skills into beautifully detailed and accurate, content-rich, representations of historical figures. He was recruited by the school to create these portraits for Black History Month. He spray-painted them freehand onto bed sheets, looking in each case at a small photograph for the image. It was a powerful message for the school to unite the out-of-school urban passion for graffiti – often seen as anti-school – and celebrate and harness this artist’s talent to honor black heroes for the school’s hallways.