Souls Shot: Portraits of Victims of Gun Violence

This project links fine artists with families or friends of victims of gun violence. The artists meet with the victims' loved ones to learn about the lives they lived. With information provided by the family or friend the artist creates a portrait. Our goal is to present diverse works that in some way relay graphically, or through narrative, the essence of the person being portrayed.

Our mission is to bring attention to, memorialize, and humanize the lives lost and tragically altered due to gun violence. Portraits have the unique ability to call out the souls and profoundly affect those who see them.  With our invitational approach people who view our exhibitions are brought to a place of empathy and moved to become involved.

We hope that this project will continue to bring some joy and peace to the families and friends of victims and, by bringing attention to the scourge of gun violence in this way, be a call to action to all who see them.  

Our exhibitions feature about 30 portraits and they travel to different host venues over one year. We are on the 4th edition of the project. The exhibitions have been hung in houses of worship, universities, art schools, colleges, galleries, libraries, museums, and state capitols. We are also starting chapters in New Jersey and hope to expand to Baltimore and, eventually, many more cities and communities.

We provide educational programs and are active in outreach and cooperation with other gun violence awareness groups and organizations. We provide resources for people to learn how to become involved in the movement to end this public health epidemic.

While the physical exhibitions are currently sidelined due to the epidemic we are keeping an active social media presence to keep our project relevant and effective.