01 Feb Featured CPAC Member: Yvens Alex Saintil
YVENS ALEX SAINTIL
Member Since: 2019
Each quarter, we share a portfolio by one of CPAC’s many talented members. This time it’s Yvens Alex Saintil, a Denver-based artist whose documentary project, #Uberinjustice: Mikey, is on view at CPAC in The Subjective Lens – Through the Eyes of Veterans through February 15, 2020.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
#Uberinjustice: Mikey
#Uberinjustice: Mikey was born out of the necessity to document a family’s journey through a far too common phenomenon in the black community — a loved one, usually a young man, caught in the grasp of the criminal justice system.
Michael Hancock II, better known as Mikey, is a father, brother, and son with no criminal background. In the eyes of white America, he is the standard-bearer for the black community — a step above his peers, especially those with felony offenses.
One summer night in June 2018, Mikey defended himself from an aggressive attack that resulted in the death of the attacker. In Mikey’s mind that night, he was justified. However, in the controlling and oppressive eye of the justice system — and at the discretion of those appointed to provide justice — he was deemed a criminal. And for 15 months, he was uprooted from his family, friends, school, and thrown into a system designed to keep him and people who look like him in a revolving cycle of recidivism. His only crime that night: being black. And because of the color of his skin, his account of the events that occurred that night was not factual. And for over a year and a half, a highly fabricated and embellished story was concocted by the judicial system to criminalize and dehumanize him. Except this time, the plot to send Mikey to prison for the rest of his life was thwarted by a jury.
— Yvens Alex Saintil
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Website: alexshootz.com
Instagram: @alex_shootz
I am an interdisciplinary artist and fine arts student, exploring, experimenting, and creating two, three, and four-dimensional art. My inspiration comes from my service in the military, post-military trauma, and past and current personal experiences and relationships with people, places, and circumstances. My art is my interpretation and inquisitorial expression of our society, and its blatant disrespect and systemic oppression of marginalized groups, as well as my obsession with capturing time and motion, and unwavering search of happiness and human connection.