#SayHerName, one of C-Note’s protest art was originally created with a different focus but found new life in the Black Lives Matter movement following George Floyd’s death, demonstrating the power of art to transcend its original intent and speak to broader social issues.
In 2020, the death of African American George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department unleashed protests and riots across the United States. C-Note’s Decarcerate Now was specifically created for a 2020 music video Mask Protest, a play on the phrase mass protest. As a result, C-Note decided to take some of his pre-existing works and to make them available for use as protest art. His 2017, Strange Fruit was one such artwork.
Strange Fruit was a Paintoem created to raise awareness of the unusually higher than the national average in the rate of suicides at the California Institution for Women 2014 – 2015. “However, whenever you get high rates of female deaths,” states C-Note, “The rallying cry amongst activists is Say Her Name.” Say Her Name could have easily been the name of Strange Fruit, but since the artwork depicts a suicide of a Black woman by hanging, synonyms with the historic lynchings that prompted Abel Meeropol’s 1937 poem Strange Fruit, the prison artist used that as the inspiration for the Paintoem’s title.
One of things that pisses me off, I’m an artist. I’m trying to get my name out there to get paid. But you got all these artists whose works are bland, no style diversity in their portfolio, being recognized, and I’m not. I’m like fool, “My art doesn’t live on walls, but in the streets!” My artwork has been displayed on billboards, a mural, book cover, as well as in books, on women’s bodies in the form of a fashion line, music videos, used in PSAs, and used in publications in print as well as online. My art is doing the mostest, but I’m being paid the leastest.
His art doesn’t live on walls, but in the streets
From the San Francisco, Castro District, the homeless, to in front of the jails, and in the hands of well known activists, C-Note’s #SayHerName is the living embodiment “His art doesn’t live on walls, but in the streets!”
Own a piece of art that has transcended boundaries
Originally created for a different cause, C-Note’s #SayHerName powerfully embodies the #SayHerName movement. Bring this impactful artwork into your home or share it with the world – click on the image below 👇
