Emma, 2018
Student, Activist and gun control advocate
48 x 60 inches
Oil on canvas
Private collection
“We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we’re going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because, just as David said, we are going to be the last mass shooting. Just like Tinker v. Des Moines, we are going to change the law.”
—Emma Gonzalez
Surviving the February 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Emma Gonzalez responded by co-founding the gun control advocacy group ‘Never Again MSD’ which then helped organize ‘March For Our Lives’. Watching her speak at a rally against gun violence not long after the devastating event at MSD, I was immediately taken by the look and apparent personality of Emma, with her shaved head and fearless speaking-through-tears attitude. Her young face expressed deep anguish and pain, and a sense of intense confusion surrounding the horror that she and her fellow survivors were forced to come to terms with. It was important to me that the painting reflect all of this.