No Conviction, 2017 ©Villalongo Studio LLC.
One of a few paintings to make a bridge from the artists earlier paintings which feature of a clan of women painting for survival and based in art historical narratives. “No Conviction” refers to the exhausting and recurring lack of convictions for police officers who have murdered unarmed black people in the U.S. The figure holds an empty promissory note. A reference to Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream Speech” in which he talks about the rights of American Citizens as written in its Constitution, as a “promissory note.” He says, “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds.” (Martin Luther King) The phone in the foreground faithfully represents and a viral Instagram post which lists all the black people whom murder trials ended without convictions for their killers. In the background, the artist earlier figures recede from the main stage. A lone woman more enveloped by the velvet boarder than ever, floats down a river on a raft fashioned from a grid painting. The tranquil vignette reflects on the living dynamics of institutional racism at play in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The painting combines velvety flocked surfaces, paper collage, acrylic painting and silkscreen on a wood panel.