Victims of gun violence commemorated in Philadelphia art exhibits: Shots

PHILADELPHIA — Zarinah Lomax is an extraordinary documentarian of our time. She has designed dresses from yellow crime-scene tape and stylized jackets with hand-painted words like “Don’t Shoot” in purple, black and gold. Every few months, she curates pop-up galleries of dozens of portraits of Philadelphians — bold, vibrant, larger-than-life faces — to raise the alarm about gun violence in her hometown and across America.

Lomax estimates he has about a thousand paintings by local artists in his storage unit, mostly of young people who have been shot, as well as others showing the mothers, sisters, friends and mourners who are left wondering why.

“The goal is not to make people cry,” said Lomax, a producer, talk show host and community activist from Philadelphia who has traveled to New York, Atlanta and Miami to collaborate on similar art exhibits about trauma. “It’s about letting families and people who have experienced this know that they are not forgotten.”

Each person “is not a number,” she said. “They’re somebody’s child. Somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter who worked for something,” she said. “The portraits are not just portraits. They tell us what the consequences are of what’s happening in our cities.”

In 2020, guns became the leading cause of death among children and adolescents—both by suicide and assault—and new research on the public health crisis from Harvard Medical School’s Blavatnik Institute shows how these losses ripple through families and neighborhoods, with significant economic and psychological costs.

Commissioned portrait paintings by Zarinah Lomax. Each person “is not a number. They’re somebody’s child. Somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter who worked for something,” Lomax explains. “The portraits aren’t just portraits. They tell us what the consequences are of what’s happening in our cities.”

Christine Spolar for KFF Health News

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Christine Spolar for KFF Health News

Bringing statistics to life

On June 25, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis: “With each passing day, more children die from gun violence. The more children witness gun violence, the more likely they are to be shot and survive, and the more likely they are to suffer lifelong physical and mental health consequences.”

Philadelphia has recorded more than 9,000 fatal and nonfatal shootings since 2020, with about 80% of the victims identifying as Black, according to the city comptroller. Of those injured or dead, about 60% were 30 or younger.

Lomax has played a singular, and perhaps unlikely, role in creating unforgettable statistics. Since 2018, when a young friend about to graduate from Penn State was gunned down on a Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia, Lomax has made it his mission to support the healing of those who have experienced violence.

She started a show on PhillyCAM, a community media channel, to encourage people to talk about guns, opioids and grief. She organized fashion shows with local artists and families that focused on bearing witness to distress. And she took up portraiture, commissioning works from local artists through her nonprofit, The Apologues, as a way to commemorate the lives, not the deaths, of Philadelphia’s youth.

She began following the shootings on social media, in news reports and sometimes by word of mouth. In 2022, City Hall opened three floors to a remarkable exhibition of lives lost, curated by Lomax and created by dozens of artists.

She recently shared the portraits at a summit sponsored by the nonprofit Brady: United Against Gun Violence and CeaseFirePA. The meeting offered advice on enforcing regulations to prevent the fake gun purchases that fuel crime and provided data on interstate gun trafficking. Lomax knew that the artwork, displayed along the stage, was raising the stakes.

Look at these faces, she said. These people were promising. What happened? What can be done?

Lomax, now 40, says the conversations she starts have a purpose. She gives some of her paintings to families. She saves others for future exhibitions.

“It’s not what I wanted to do in life,” she said. “When I was little, I thought I would be a nurse. But I guess that’s how I heal people.”

Healing “invisible wounds”

Philadelphia has seen a decline in murders this year, but it ranks among the top five cities for murders, according to an online database from AH Datalytics. Last year, Harvard researchers found that communities and families are vulnerable to gunshot wounds.

The 2023 study led by Zirui Song, an associate professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School, looked at data from newborns to age 19. The research documented a “massive” economic toll, with health care costs increasing by an average of $35,000 for survivors in the year following a shooting, and life-changing mental health issues.

Song, who is also a general internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, says shooting survivors and their caregivers, whether they are dealing with physical injuries or generalized fear, often suffer “lasting and invisible wounds, including psychological disorders and substance abuse.” His study found that parents of injured children suffered a 30 percent increase in psychiatric disorders compared with parents whose children were not shot.

Desiree Norwood, who paints in acrylics, has been helping Lomax since 2021. Like all artists, she is paid by Lomax. She has completed about 30 portraits, always after sitting down with the subject’s family. “I get a backstory that I can weave into the portrait,” she said. “Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we pray. Sometimes we try to encourage each other. It’s hard to do.”

“I hope one day I don’t have to paint another portrait,” said Norwood, a mother of five. “The idea that Zarinah has been the subject of so many exhibitions, with so many people dead, is frightening and heartbreaking.”

Mike Doughty, a self-taught digital artist, was among those who wanted to help “honor and provide a better sense of who these people were.” Doughty, a city employee who works in a courthouse, is perhaps best known in Philadelphia for a series of whimsical murals in which he has grouped famous natives such as Will Smith, Grace Kelly and Kevin Hart.

He shot about 150 portraits on his iPad and laptop, working with Lomax’s band The Apologues, to best match a face to a phrase, embedded in the scene, that telegraphs the lost potential of youth.

“It was hard to do at first,” says Doughty, who works from family photos. “I look at it and think, ‘These are kids. Just kids.’”

One day, he received a text message from Lomax asking for a portrait of a rapper he recognized from art and music shows. Another day, he opened an email and found a photo of a man he knew from high school.

In May, Doughty shared on Instagram his process for a portrait of Derrick Gant, a rapper whose stage name is Phat Geez, who was shot and killed in March. The killing came weeks after the rapper released “No Gunzone,” a music video that referenced an Instagram account that promotes anti-violence efforts in the city.

Doughty, 33, who grew up in the Nicetown neighborhood of North Philadelphia, remarked wryly, “It wasn’t so nice.” Lomax’s exhibits, he said, allow families, and even neighborhoods, to sort through grief and pain.

“I went to the last session and a mother came up to me and asked, ‘Did you draw my child’s portrait?’ She fell into my arms and cried. It was an unforgettable moment,” he said. “And it reminded us why we do what we do.”

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