When Black lives are taken by acts of police brutality, there’s always a push on social media to say the victims’ names to acknowledge they were more than a faceless statistic.
And in many ways, it’s just as important to say their ages as well.
Breonna Taylor was only 26 years old when she was gunned down in her home by police. Aiyana Stanley-Jones was just seven when the same thing happened in 2010. George Floyd and Eric Garner: 46 and 43, respectively, when they were choked to death by police.
These were all lives cut short by unnecessary police force—and Brooklyn-based artist Adrian Brandon has found a powerful way to illustrate the years that were taken from them.
In his series Stolen, Brandon sets a timer for himself as he starts coloring in blank portraits of Black victims. Each year they lived represents one minute. And once the timer goes off, Brandon is left with a partially filled in portrait that underscores how much more life was left to live.
“As a person of color, I know that my future can be stolen from me if I’m driving with a broken taillight, or playing my music too loud, or reaching for my phone at the wrong time,” Brandon said in an Instagram post introducing his series in 2019. “So for each of these portraits I played with the harsh relationship between time and death. I want the viewer to see how much empty space is left in these lives, stories that will never be told, space that can never be filled. This emptiness represents holes in their families and our community, who will be forever stuck with the question, ‘who were they becoming?'”
Check out more of Brandon’s work on his website and Instagram.