I’ve been painting Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. As most of my paintings, the source image doesn’t resemble the end result. What strikes me most is how much the portraits end up looking like people I’ve known in real life.

This painting looks like a student I had years ago named Chris Smith. Chris was not a great student; he couldn’t concentrate, talked constantly, often tore up his papers in front of my face. But he was one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. His tone of voice was and delivery was legendary. When a classmate asked how Michael Jackson died, Chris said, “He just died, end of story. Stop asking so many questions, fool. It’s none of your business.” When our school closed, Chris was one of the few students not given a place at the sister school because his discipline record was a mile long. I have a terrible feeling that his teachers could only see him as a pile of paperwork instead of the funny kid everyone adored.

He is one of the filters I view Michael Brown through — he was somebody’s favorite person.