GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Students at Kentwood Public Schools grappling with news a 26-year-old Congolese refugee, Patrick Lyoya, was shot and killed by a Grand Rapids police officer used their artistic skills to honor him.
Following the April killing, teachers in East Kentwood High School’s Visual Art Department brainstormed the idea of painting a portrait with 15 students who wanted to collaborate and amplify Lyoya’s story to the larger community.
The students were already processing other deadly incidents involving Black men when they embarked on the portrait project that became an ArtPrize 2022 entry but was not the goal. “Under the Veil,” is featured at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain St. NE, in downtown Grand Rapids.
The art project was funded with a $5,000 grant from the Steelcase Foundation, who approached the faculty about a tribute shortly after Lyoya was shot April 4 by ex-officer Christopher Schurr following a struggle after a traffic stop. Schurr was fired and is charged with second-degree murder.
“I believe this piece made me deal with a tragedy and confront the tragedy that happened in my community and really see him,” said Judith Kahlihara, an East Kentwood High School student involved in the project, who is Congolese.
“It made me confront fears that this has happened and I hope that it doesn’t happen again. And I hope people see that through this artwork that so many of us worked hard to curate.”
Kahlihara said she knew Lyoya through her brothers, describing him as family oriented and always well put together.
Kentwood Public Schools has over 9,000 students and is one of the most diverse districts in the state, with students from multiple countries including the Congo.
Lyoya’s family shared a collection of recent photographs for the portrait, painted on canvas. Lyoya is shown dressed in a gold and black shirt, with a gold chain around his neck. The borders of the portrait uses African fabric that the students painted.
“The fabric which borders the portrait is a fabric in our culture called Kipeng,” Kahlihara said. “It signifies to a lot of people something of like strength in unity, and that fabric played a role because he is Congolese.”
Olivia Miller, an art teacher at East Kentwood High School, said the team was adamant on not only capturing Lyoya’s essence, but his culture as well.
“Patrick was very stylish, but he was also very proud of his culture,” Miller said. “We wanted to celebrate that part of his story because sometimes when we see a tragedy happen, it can be dehumanizing, and we don’t see who they are, especially if we don’t know them.”
She said it was important for the students to see they could use their creativity to showcase an important issue.
“So many of our students, and a lot of our students that have been working on this, are immigrants or refugees,” Miller said. “A lot of them, even though they might not be of the same culture, understand trauma responses. They connected with him and understood that it could have been anyone in our community.”
Gabrielle Burns, another student artist on the project, said she had a voice as just one student in a Kentwood school. She said you really don’t see most people be able to make the type of an impact they did through the portrait.
“It helped me show that my voice is there and that it mattered,” Burns said.
East Kentwood teachers Le Tran and Kimberly Meyers-Baas also worked with the students along with Miller and local artist Monroe O’Bryant. Virginia Wieringa, a retired art teacher previously with Grand Rapids Public Schools, offered her fabric skills and knowledge.
In August, after the art project was finished, Miller took the piece to the A Glimpse of Africa Festival in Grand Rapids, where she was able to meet Lyoya’s parents in person.
Miller said she spoke with his mom alongside a Swahili interpreter who translated.
“All of a sudden, as I was explaining the project, his mother looked away and she had tears rolling down her face,” Miller said. “And she said to him, ‘I am not crying because I want you to feel sorry for me, I‘m crying because when I look at this, I can see his spirit.‘ And that had me crying because that‘s what we wanted to do; capture his essence.”
Inspired by the well-received feedback on the piece, the art teachers decided to enter the piece in ArtPrize, an 18-day international art competition that kicked off Sept. 15 and ends Oct. 2. There are roughly 750 entries, 150 venues, and $250,000 in prize money awarded based on public input and jurors.
Related: 21 must-see photos from ArtPrize 2022′s opening days
“We were pleased that Fountain Street Church wanted us because their theme and all of their ArtPrize pieces was social justice,” said Meyers-Baas, who is the chair of the art department and design illustrator at East Kentwood High School. “And we believe art needs to have a message and be meaningful. It’s great to look pretty, but we thought this portrait could start a conversation.”
Other faculty and students part of the project include:
- Alyssa Rinck
- Ven Zing
- Ram Lian
- Hee Say
- Alison Li
- Rachel Kisile
- Remlla Ali
- Scarlett Lee
- Sherlyn Rosales
- Jill Schmidt
- Adina Hodzic
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