Art exhibit at MCAD confronts gun violence
A mixed media piece titled “Lethality Assessment” by Jennifer A. Shultz displayed the names of 31 women who were murdered as a result of domestic violence in Minnesota in 2025. In the top center is a figure named Mariah. The Northside's Mariah Samuels was lost to gun violence via domestic abuse last fall. Photo by Azhae’la Hanson
By Azhae’la Hanson, Reporter
A new gallery exhibit at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) titled “Fragments Reimagined” features Northside artists and signals a call to action to end gun violence.
Co-curator of the gallery and founder of Art Is My Weapon, Nikki McComb, hosted the opening for the annual gallery on May 30.
Art Is My Weapon is a nonprofit inspired by the “Guns in the Hands of Artists” initiative, which originated in New Orleans in the mid 1990’s. McComb became CEO of the Minnesota non-profit in 2015. Through the organization, she uses trauma-informed care and art to work with families and youth who were impacted by gun violence or were in the juvenile justice system.
The issue of gun violence in North Minneapolis is ongoing, and McComb has worked for nearly three decades to reduce it. In addition to the non-profit, McCombs has been a gunshot responder for North Memorial Hospital, where she says most patients who came through were from the Northside. The cycle, she said, at first took a toll on her mental health.
“It's a continual thing happening right here in our community,” McComb said. “I've been involved in serving families whose babies have been murdered, whose toddlers have been murdered, whose grandmothers have been murdered. All, by the hands of a gun. And there are a lot of gun crimes that happen that we don't even hear about.”
Through Art is My Weapon, she said her longtime experience as a Northsider and proximity to gun violence inspire her to turn community pain into art, blend it with advocacy and inspire change. In the gallery title, the word “Fragments” comes from the things left behind in the aftermath of gun violence.
Some artworks in the gallery include metal canvases riddled with bullet holes, jewelry intricately wired around into necklaces with bullet casings, gun marketing disguised as children’s toys, a memorial of women who were lost to domestic abuse and gun violence, a painting that was inspired by a photo of an Annunciation mother running barefoot in the aftermath of the mass shooting, and portraits of Black children with guns looming nearby.
“Just knowing that there was something that needed to be done, and as an artist, my way of doing it was to raise awareness around the issue,” McComb said. “I am not a lawmaker or policy maker, but I can create things that would lead to policy change. And that is art.”
A gun reform bill that called for a ban on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines died on the floor of the Minnesota House when GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth refused to call for a vote.
That bill would have had little impact on North Minneapolis, McComb said, because the type of gun violence that occurs on the Northside is different.
She said it is mostly domestic or gang-related.
“There are more guns on the street that are not assault rifles that do not have high-capacity magazines, where other legislation could happen,” she said.
At the opening, gallery guests who were either affected by gun violence or family members left behind by it had a chance to sit down and write postcards to politicians who have not supported gun reform bills.
When systems fail, what’s left is how to cope with that reality. As much as it is a showcase for change, the exhibition has become a collective space to grieve.
At his studio, artist seangarrison talked about his body of work, which makes a statement about human experiences. At MCAD, he is displaying a piece (not pictured) titled “a lynching by any other name”. Photo by Azhae’la Hanson
“It doesn’t bug me the way it used to (when politicians fail to make change), because I have a better understanding of things - that this country was not founded for the preservation of Black bodies,” said the Northside abstract artist, seangarrison.
Pain, he said, is one of the most powerful emotions. His body of work is dedicated to starting conversations about gun violence and race-based oppression in America. He says he's known twelve kids lost to gun violence in his life.
He has a piece titled “a lynching by another name” that draws a direct line between the historical terror of lynching and the contemporary epidemic of gun violence.
“Art changes things in ways that others cannot. You can throw money at the issue, that don't say nothing,” he said. “You can put more cops in the hood; that don't stop the murders. So, if you don't encroach upon people's emotions and get them thinking, then there's not gonna be any change.”
He said he applauds McComb for her conviction to make art and spaces that address gun violence.
“No one solely talks about gun violence in art spaces; those galleries don't exist,” he said.
Crystal Sokuu, a featured artist in the gallery, mixes trauma and beauty in her piece titled “Broken Hearts.”
“I hope that people feel a sense of possibility,” she said. “That even after loss, we can create something meaningful. Healing doesn't erase what happened, but it can transform the way that we carry it.”
The exhibition at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design runs through Aug. 8.