structural veil (2020) A four-panel text-based mural presented across plywood window barriers  at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio, during protests at the end of May 2020, following the murder of George Flyod and countless other Black Americans at the hands of police, this year. 

The tension of the building’s damaged physical structure and the national uprising against structural racism and oppression are analogous. Both are simultaneously weaved throughout the poetry as critique and posed introspection.

This piece asks you to ask yourself why. It asks you to acknowledge a destructive reality. To uncover and reveal, to yourself, a truth. 

structural veil suspends Black voice, criticism, and outcry in public space. Much like a march.

Each panel includes lines from the protest chant “No justice. No peace. No racist police.” The lines repeat 8 times —noting the last minutes of George Floyd’s life, where he was pinned beneath a Minneapolis police officer’s knee.

The repetition of the lines echoes the rhythm of a chant and the systemic recurrence of violence against Black body after Black body.

structural veil is a refusal. It denounces police brutality. It condemns oppression.

The spacing between the four windows was not intentional, but did allow for each panel to be experienced in sections (or stanzas). These pauses provided time for self-reflection and space to incite collective action.

structural veil was commissioned by Weston Art Gallery Director Dennis Harrington. It is the third of four projects Elese has done at the Weston.

Weston Gallery commissions mural in response to George Floyd and ensuing events - Movers & Makers Magazine