In the Soul of a Nation exhibit, I saw the “Dan Johnson’s Surprise” piece of art. I chose this one because it stood out to me right from the beginning. Being that it is mostly an off-white color, with faded blue-ish gray circular figures, it stuck out as unique to me. The circular figures resemble stretched out human heads, so it makes me think that they are ghosts of some sort. The figure on the far right almost seems to have a body as well. This eerie element is why I chose it; it jumps out at my eyes, almost in the same way that the figures seem to jump out at the viewer. In fact, this aspect reminds me of those silhouette images of people reaching for help (view image below to see what I mean by this). The difference is these people are so twisted and morphed, they are almost beyond recognition of a representation of a person.

This is fitting with the theme of the rest of the exhibition. The theme behind the exhibit is the idea of racial violence and how to be empowered and uplifted against this. This image gives the heart of the viewer a pang that makes them want to fight against racial discrimination and violence, so that is how it relates to the entire exhibition. In fact, the idea that they look like ghosts relates to racial violence, in that the violence could have killed and mutilated the figures, leaving them as only what is seen in the image.