One day last week, Makayla Binter woke up angry.
It’s not an emotion the recent Davidson graduate often shows — she is light-hearted and smiling, even while wearing spikes as a track athlete in competition — but her fire had been building for days, stoked by news reports and social media. She had immersed herself in the issues of racial injustice and police brutality that were again brought to the forefront, this time when George Floyd’s life was slowly and forcefully extinguished on camera. It was overwhelming.
So Binter did what she often does when her emotions run high: she began painting.
Struck by photos from the lens of photographer Alvin Jacobs, Jr., who was covering the protests in Minneapolis, Binter carried a large cotton canvas into her Charlotte driveway and prepared her supplies. She gathered acrylic and spray paints ranging from blue and red to black, brown and white. And she set up a time-lapse camera behind her to mark the progress.
She thought, “I just need to throw everything that I have at this canvas.”
Over the next four hours, she did just that.
For any project, there has to be a starting point, and Jacobs’ photos provided that, though Binter’s final work didn’t resemble her initial ideas in exactly the way she first imagined. It’s often that way in art; once in the moment and on the canvas, the project takes on a life of its own.
“It’s like a continuous line of thought that just kind of flows and expresses itself and comes out,” she says. “Eventually it’s going to become its own thing. From there, it just makes it more personal, makes it more raw.”
The painting is called “8 minutes and 46 seconds,” the amount of time Floyd endured officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on his throat while face down and handcuffed on a Minneapolis street. It’s a complex blend of colors, ranging from fiery and patriotic elements to smoky and metallic grays.
To Binter, it’s “the destruction and revolutionizing of a new America. Things are burning and changing and kind of like a process of regeneration. But that painting reflects the turmoil and chaos that we are experiencing. For so long, people have been blinded by the promise of equality in freedom and are starting to wake up.”
In one corner, there’s the phrase, “Nothing will change until those unaffected care as much as those who are,” an adaptation of a quote often linked to Ben Franklin. Floyd’s final words — “I can’t breathe” — appear throughout, together and individually. The words, “This is America” are central, though draped in a theme of conflict, including the flag backwards in the breeze. A lot of the piece’s linear elements are Binter’s personal style, which she describes as “bright, explosive and loud.”
“The thing that gets me the most about George Floyd’s video is just how long it is … just how long it is,” says Binter. “That really resonates a lot because I’ve had numerous conversations with several black people and they’ve just said, ‘How long has it been since we haven’t been able to breathe?’ or ‘I haven’t been able to breathe since this awakening as a black person.’”
Binter is from Rochester, N.Y., and graduated in May with degrees in biology and studio art, the kind of rare combination reserved for the most well-rounded individuals. Binter, though, has found similarities in the two fields of study, including the ability to see what needs to be seen, whether that means viewing a painting on a wall or a slide under a microscope. Studying each subject has helped her better understand the other.
She’s been painting since she was seven.
“A lot of my friends have been encouraging me to keep creating because black artists, especially in this time period, are documenters, if that makes sense,” she says. “We’re documenting, not only emotions, but then also actions and history, ultimately. So this process of creation is really important. That’s basically what I’ve been throwing myself into.”
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, her athletic career was cut short, and she didn’t get to walk across the stage at graduation or have her senior art exhibition on campus. But her work is on display in public spaces. Last summer, she created the interactive Mural Panel Project near the Chambers Building to highlight social injustice, and she recently worked with Placemaking Artists to paint a mural near Charlotte’s Johnson C. Smith University.
Whenever she’s artistically inspired, it’s her hope that what she produces will inspire others who feel the same and challenge those who may not.
As she painted “8 minutes and 46 seconds,” children from the neighborhood came to see what she was doing. Curious, they filter in and out of the time-lapse, unaware of the camera. She keeps art supplies handy for them, and they often draw together.
“They came by, and they saw me arting,” she says. “That’s the thing that calmed me down. That’s what got me on a better level.”
Having the children present while she painted brought the spring of 2020 full circle in many ways. Binter thought of the importance of her own graduation, not for herself as much as how she hopes it will impact others. She will teach at Charlotte Country Day School in the fall — she’s not sure whether it will be art or biology at this point — and just wants to set a positive example for everyone she encounters, from the neighborhood to the classroom.
She wants to make a difference in the world, and often that means channeling her feelings into art and her art into action.
“Growing myself as an artist and growing myself as a person is going to ultimately benefit not only just me but also the people I’m able to come into contact with,” she says. “These paintings are a process of that development and that movement forward that can really create something impactful for not only myself but for others.”
Credits:
Tim Cowie, DavidsonPhotos.com; Chris Record; The Davidsonian; Makayla Binter