Gabriel Piemonte, No Blossom, Ink and Watercolor on Paper, 2024
No Blossom is a collection of individual art pieces which are each a reverberation of a homicide victim in Chicago; collectively, it is an accumulation that began in March.
On March 8, 2024, my granddaughter, ChiYenne Washington, was murdered.* She appears in the city’s crime records as a line of data entry in a spreadsheet: a block of a street, a category of crime, a date and time, and a location. Her murder has appeared in the news because of the particularly violent nature of the crime. These sources equate ChiYenne with her murder, as if that is the sum of her. But these details are not her. This crime is not who she was or how she should be remembered.
None of the people who are murdered in this city should be considered noteworthy because of the violent way in which they died. Nobody should be reduced to that, defined in that way. Surely life should mean more than this.
I began what has become No Blossom with three scraps of paper cut away from larger pieces, extra paper discarded from other artwork. I began drawing lines of no particular length or shape on each of them. Because the pieces of paper were long and narrow, my lines followed the shape, and I ended up with line bundles such as you see in all of the pieces. I then added two or more different colored drops of ink on one end of the paper using a wet-on-wet method. In this approach, one sees pools of fluid pigment colliding, already-vivid colors merging into new colors and hues. On the other end, as a counterweight in the composition, I used pieces of sponge cut in various shapes to apply earth-toned watercolors, mostly browns and greys.
Each spring, wherever there are groves of cherry trees planted, the blooming of the blossoms is a much-anticipated event. If conditions are unfavorable, however — if there are volatile or extreme weather conditions — the trees will not bloom. By their nature, cherry blossoms abjure violence. This year, the cherry trees in Jackson Park on the South Side did not blossom. I first started seeing reports that the trees would not bloom this year during the week following ChiYenne’s funeral. The title No Blossom carries this entangled meaning for me.
There is one piece for each murder recorded by the Chicago Police from March 8 until one week before the opening of the show** — a number that will be updated each week through its closing as additional police data becomes available.
The inks used are manufactured by Jacques Herbin and Diamine Inks. The watercolors are manufactured by Winsor & Newton. The black ink is Yasutomo sumi ink. The paper is 140 lb/300 gsm cold press.
* ChiYenne’s boyfriend confessed to the murder and is currently standing trial.
** The database provides information for crimes between one year and one week before the time the query is made.