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    Transforming The Pain Of Black Lives Lost Into Portraits Of Magic Embodied

    Frustrated by media depictions of the suffering of black people, photographer Mikael Owunna uses fluorescent paint and UV light to portray his subjects adorned in stars, as "infinite as the universe."
    by Becky Harlan Mar 03, 2019 4 minutes
    Kinya, 2017

    Using fluorescent body paint and ultraviolet light, photographer Mikael Owunna's latest work aims to transform the black body into "the cosmos and eternal." The images evoke celestial beings, magical and otherworldly.

    But the concept for the project, Infinite Essence, was sparked by frustration and exhaustion.

    The 28-year-old Nigerian-Swedish photographer, who was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., and is based there now, says he grew weary of the barrage of violent, dehumanizing imagery of black people he saw in the media.

    "Black people dead and dying. Being gunned down by police officers, drowning and washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean, starving and suffering in award-winning photography. The

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