Resting

One Book One Northwestern, 2020–21

This artwork was selected in response to themes in Northwestern’s community-wide reading of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014) by Bryan Stevenson.

Just Mercy is fundamentally a book about struggle—struggle with the justice system or, in author Bryan Stevenson’s words, "the struggle to be equitable and fair with one another." In Charles Keller’s Resting, the physical manifestation of struggle is made visible through the body. In this defeated, depleted individual, we recognize the effects of an unfair system. While the artist likely intended to address the hardships of physical labor or the plight of the poor and marginalized in the United States, the figure’s unseen face allows the artwork to become a universal image of exhaustion and despair. Keller was a white artist and activist with connections to many artists whose work was centered on social and economic justice issues. In his artwork, he consistently addressed racism, equality, voting rights, and often the oppression of workers or the sick. We can imagine that the subject’s state is the result of existing in a system that is inherently unfair for the poor, for people of color, the disadvantaged, and the marginalized. Through its intimate presentation of a vulnerable body, Keller’s drawing also evokes compassion and the need to reaffirm and uphold human dignity.