UNITED DEATHS IN AMERICA
By Dave Ortiz
Multicolor Silk Screen Prints on acid-free archival paper
Hand printed by artist
16x20 inches
Edition of 5
(Price $1750)
Michael Stewart, ✝ 1983
Eleonor Blumpurs, ✝ 1984
Michael Griffin, ✝ 1986
Yusuf Hawkins, ✝ 1989
Amadou Diallo, ✝ 1999
Ousmane Zongo, ✝ 2003
Sean Bell, ✝ 2006
Deborah Danner, ✝ 2016
United Deaths of America is a series of silkscreen prints about racial violence, and police murders.
Each and every print is hand made by the artist.
The complete series consists of 12 motives.
The prints show black people who have been killed by law enforcement, or a white mob since the 1980s mainly in NYC.
Having grown up in East New York in the 70s and 80s police and the separation from white neighborhoods represented oppressive, violent and life threatening power structures. Being black and growing up poor was often a death sentence in itself.
”United Deaths in America” is a print series I started to work on in 2016/17.
I chose the individuals of my “United Death in America” series due to a personal connection, a similarity in life events of my own and to memorialize them and state their name. Racially motivated killings are tragically nothing new to my community. They have been going on for a very long time... As a Puerto Rican kid growing up in East New York during the 70s and 80s tragedies much like today's deaths of George Floyd and Breona Taylor left deep and scarring marks on me and defined a clear awareness of the harsh and dangerous limitations a black kid and black person in America has to face. Every day. Day and night.”