For this work, I was inspired by the painting Ora Pro Nobis (Pray for Us) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. In it he depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by cherubs looking up to the sky and raising her hands in exaltation. I decided to take the same pose, and give a different meaning to it.

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Already by replacing the Virgin with a young black boy does the image begin to change meanings. His hands raised not in praise, but in fear of his safety.

He is surrounded by guns instead of cherubs, surrounded by danger instead of peace and divinity. The different guns represent potential threats, standard issue police handguns are accompanied by shot-guns, semi-automatics, and even an fully automatic assault rifle.
 

The flowers below are white chrysanthemums, representing innocence. These flowers unlike the ones accompanying the virgin, are wilting, showing the death of innocence.