‘That’s my heart’: Mothers gifted portraits of their children killed by gun violence

The children’s animated faces gazed out from portraits mounted in a ring at the center of the city: a baby wearing a purple dress and tiara; a young man, joyful in a graduation cap; a woman grinning, her head tilted gently to the side.

“A Mother’s Love,” an exhibit of 55 portraits of children killed by gun violence in Philadelphia, had a one-day debut in the courtyard of City Hall on Friday. It was organized by the nonprofit organization the Apologues, conceived and curated by founder Zarinah Lomax.

The faces together portray a generation of Philadelphians lost to gun violence — and a staggering collective toll. Some family members reacted viscerally to seeing their sons and daughters so lifelike once again.

“I could not believe that the artist captured my son. It was like he knew him,” said Michele Parker, who wept upon seeing the portrait of her child, Evan Baylor. The artist made her son real, Parker said, down to the waves of his hair, the furrow in his eyebrows, his smirky smile.

Baylor was killed in front of Parker’s home in West Philadelphia on Juneteenth 2021, at the age of 23.

Parker found herself thinking about how her son used to shower her with flowers, gifts, and appreciation posts on social media for Mother’s Day; he treated her to a Mother’s Day dinner at an Italian restaurant in Center City just before he died.

In a city where the number of homicides and shootings has reached record heights in recent years, Lomax’s organization draws attention to the ever-widening circle of grief and trauma that radiates from each death, impacting not just parents and children but entire communities across the city. Lomax speaks about how her own father is serving life in prison for murder.

“I’m really big on the unseen stories, the ones that are not being played any longer,” Lomax said at the exhibit. “This is a lot of people here.”

Over more than six months, artists chosen by Lomax worked closely with relatives of those killed by gun violence, conducting interviews, poring over photos, and sharing sketches. A few days before Mother’s Day, the Apologues unveiled the portraits, which were given to the mothers at the end of Friday’s display.

“We wanted it to be in City Hall because we wanted it to be somewhere that was the crossroads of Philadelphia,” said Jane Golden, executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, which collaborated with the Apologues on the exhibit. Mural Arts plans to create a mural based on the works, as well.

Across the courtyard, the portraits drew stunned appreciation. Latrice Felix, of King of Prussia, was moved by a portrait of her daughter, LaShawna Newton, even as it was painful to see.

Newton died of a stroke in the fall of 2022, two years after her beloved brother, Alan Womack Jr., was killed during a basketball dispute, Felix said.

“She just could not get past it,” Felix said. “I believe her heart was broken.”

Felix is now raising her grandchildren, Newton’s two young children.

“Y’all see your mommy?” another mother asked Newton’s children, gesturing toward the pink portrait of their mother, her head tilted to the side, a warm smile on her face.

“I wasn’t expecting all of these pictures,” said Newton’s daughter, Jaelyn Jones, who is 10. “I was expecting it just to be portraits of my mother and my uncle. But I’m not complaining, because these people are beautiful.”

Jones used to love joking with her mother and watching the Kevin Hart movie Fatherhood with her. She said she expected she would feel a pang on Sunday, unable to celebrate with her.

Michelle Davis-Brown, standing in front of a portrait of her son, Kyle Cortez-Davis, painted in a crisp Marine uniform, will also feel a pang. Her son died 11 days shy of his 32nd birthday.

“He’s my first love,” Davis-Brown said, staring at his portrait. “That’s my heart.”