“Mourn Black Murder” by Leah Jaynes Karp

Taking the Atlanta Child Murders that happened between 1979 and 1981 as her subject, Karp explains the significance of the visual elements she employed throughout the works from the series: "I used alphabet and number desk tapes to refer to primary experiences children share."

"The color blue and purple are of course passion colors, but also, I remember as a child that an uncle told me that it was always safe to stop at a restaurant or motel in the south that had blue in its name, so the color symbolizes blackness to me."

"I started this series on a much smaller scale, but I changed to the large scale notebooks and Palmer cursive as I tried to put myself in the scale of a child to its notebook."

"The words are from the news broadcasts that I listened to in my studio as I worked."

"The flowers are Rubrim Lillies and magnolias; I felt these flowers in bud and full blossom and beyond symbolize for me childhood and children."

Leah Jaynes Karp (American, born 1940), “Mourn Black Murder,” 1982, dye coupler print on paper with ink, 32 × 23 3/4 inches, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, gift of Lucinda W. Bunnen for the Bunnen Collection, 1983.62.2.