Racialized misinformation campaigns seek to undermine efforts to address the root causes of community violence and, in this painting, Vargas visualizes this in the form of a map of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood surrounded by mixed messages. Some messages come from the news media, others come from messages Vargas has received personally in response to his own work advocating for this issue. The painting also denotes the political ward boundaries dividing Englewood into five wards, a structural problem that makes addressing violence in the neighborhood especially challenging. Vargas produced the work by using geographic information systems to project the neighborhood and wards onto a canvas, which he painted by hand with acrylic and pastel sticks. 

Acrylic and Pastel on Canvas (36 by 60)