Photographer Benjamin Brink captured murals and other street art created as part of Portland’s Black Lives Matter movement
Since the start of nightly Black Lives Matter protests in downtown Portland, many structures, sidewalks and plywood panels protecting windows have been covered in chalk, paint and paste-up posters.
Some of the commandeered canvases are tagged skillfully in traditional graffiti styles. Others are covered in rudimentary scrawl. Messaging ranges from anti-police and anti-racist rhetoric to motivational quotes and support for Black lives.
It was early on, in late May, that local artist Emma Berger wandered around the city center, looking at the graffiti that had been put up amid the Black Lives Matter uprising.
That’s when it dawned on her: She really wanted to paint portraits on the large black wooden panels that covered the Apple Pioneer Store. Berger guessed that maybe the panels were black in solidarity with the movement — and also easy to paint over every morning to remove the graffiti.
On June 1, Berger started working on the George Floyd portrait. It mushroomed out from there, and soon she was organizing other local artists and protesters who could work on the background of the murals.
Although the Apple Store managers have not contacted her, she assumes that they aren’t painting over her portraits because that would be seen as inappropriate. So far it’s worked.
Berger has a degree from the Pratt Institute in New York, where she studied art. Her mother also worked in large public art displays. Berger said she learned from her mom that it’s “Better to say sorry than please.”
Thursday morning, just before sunrise, this collection of photos was captured. The only exception is the Mother’s Bistro & Bar photograph, taken later the same day.
The pre-sunrise photos were shot in high dynamic range (HDR), a method for capturing all possible light in one exposure. Each image has seven different photos fused into one to give it HDR.
Nearly all of these images of artwork in downtown Portland were shot near and around Pioneer Place Mall and the Apple Pioneer Store on Southwest Yamhill Street and Fifth Avenue.
For more than 40 nights, protesters have gathered in Portland to decry systemic police brutality against Black Americans.
The uprising that’s swept the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic was sparked on Memorial Day, when George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed when a white police officer kneeled on his neck while he lay on the ground in handcuffs pleading for his life.
Much of the art downtown memorializes George Floyd and other victims of police brutality, with the words “Black Lives Matter,” “I Can’t Breath” and “No Justice No Peace” adorning most murals and walls. Among those remembered are Jason Washington, fatally shot by Portland State University police in 2018; Deontae J. Keller, fatally shot in the back by Portland police in 1996; Tony McDade, a Black trans man killed by Tallahassee police in May; and Anton Sterling, killed by police in 2016 when selling homemade CDs in Baton Rouge.
Kendra James, an unarmed 21-year-old mother of two, was also among them. Portland police fatally shot James in 2003 during a traffic stop when she tried to drive away.
Several portraits pay homage to Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old medical technician who was shot and killed in March when Louisville Metro Police Department officers barged into her apartment on a warrant for someone who had already been detained and did not live there.
Elijah McClain is another Black victim of police brutality honored among downtown street art. Police in Aurora, Colo., killed McClain in August when he was walking home from the store. He was unarmed and had committed no crime. When he resisted arrest, he was put in a chokehold and later injected with ketamine. He was declared brain dead and died several days later.
Also honored is Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old whom police killed one month ago in Atlanta. Police were summoned when Brooks fell asleep in his car while in a fast-food drive-thru. After fighting with officers, he ran away and was shot from behind.
Ahmaud Arbery is also memorialized at the Apple Pioneer Store. The 25-year-old former football player was out for a run when he was fatally shot. Three white men have been indicted on murder charges in Arbery’s killing.
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