Baltimore Artist’s Exhibit Inspired by Police Brutality

For many people, art is something very personal. For the artist, even more so as often times, local and world events inspire them to create.

In Baltimore, there’s one exhibit that’s getting lots of buzz. Some of the images may be disturbing to the public.

In the 2700 block of Parkwood Avenue, there’s a work of art that people can’t walk or drive by without stopping to take a picture or speaking to the artist.

“I, personally, think it’s a bit loud. I even mentioned that it to him. I think it’s a bit much, but it definitely is getting the message across,” Baltimore resident Michael Scott said.

“I think everybody should wake up to it, because that’s what’s happening. It’s happening everywhere, but the thing about it is that it’s been going on. It’s just now coming to TV,” Baltimore resident Jonathan Esters said.

Artist Loring Cornish said he’s in mourning and has been since an unarmed Walter Scott was shot and killed by a South Carolina police officer. He was so disturbed, he closed his gallery to work on this exhibition outside of his west Baltimore studio.

“I am in mourning for all of the black men that are dying needlessly, and the United States of America is doing nothing about it. And it seems like we can do nothing about police brutality,” Cornish said.

Cornish said he felt the need as an artist to do something, and so, he painted dolls black and hanged them from a tree.

“I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to show people exactly what’s going on with a figure of something that I’ve been feeling. It’s pretty much death. We’re being killed like innocent babies,” Cornish said. “Who should get shot eight times?”

Cornish started the exhibition with signs before hanging the dolls.

“I hung them from the tree to let people visually see what we feel. We’re feeling this. This is not something we should just gloss over. We’re actually feeling death in our community,” Cornish said. “We are being lynched, killed, and murdered legally in the United States.”

“This is a self-expression of what’s going on, and if we could all get together and feel what this is about, things would get better,” Baltimore resident Kirk Dutton Sr. said.

Cornish has also placed a number of signs in the windows of his Fells Point gallery, expressing his outrage over the killings.