Justice The Person

An image of a Justice tarot card, number 11 in the deck. The card has a gray border with vines at the corners. Centered on the gray border at the top is the number XI and at the bottom the word “Justice” written in capital letters. In the center of the card, a crow stands with its wings spread in front of a blue and green nature scene. In the top left corner of the background is a black bird cage, and in top right corner is a purple flock of birds. Above the crow’s head is a large golden crown, and a bright red ribbon is covering its eyes. Near its tail feathers is a sword, resting in front of a bouquet of coneflowers. In the crow’s left foot is a bright red set of weighing scales.

….This artwork was inspired by many facets of our discussion of the
embodiment of justice. As I was brainstorming, I realized that one of the places where
there is a wide variety of depictions of justice personified is in tarot, where “Justice” is
part of the standard major arcana. The traditional artwork for this card is in line with the
traditional Lady Justice depiction, but artists have reimagined this card in an endless
number of ways. I was inspired by the person who brought the Buddhist Yama
Dharmaraja statue for found art, and the idea of associating death with justice. I chose a
crow to be my embodiment of justice as it is a traditional symbol of death. I really
wanted to lean into the nature symbolism, adding my own ideas to the traditional
symbols we associate with justice personified….

-Liz K.

A black outline of a woman with a large head is in the sky and is holding a scale and a bloody sword with a blindfold covering her eyes. The scale is imbalanced, with the word “history” being heavier than the word “fact.” The blindfold reads the words, “sex, ability, race, religion, and status.”

…She is meant to embody
Modern Day Lady Justice looking over society. Though she contains typical symbols
common to nearly all Lady Justices, her objects come with a twist and introduce the
bias into today’s justice. For starters, her sword is covered in blood, symbolizing
violence and danger—which I view as unjust forms of punishment and consequences
that arise from unjust practices in today’s legal system. Next, her scale is unbalanced,
with the word “history” carrying more weight than the word “fact.” The scale symbolizes
how the justice system takes into account, oftentimes unfairly, history and bias when
they should be only considering facts and evidence…

-Katie S.

A photo collage of cut out pictures on a white piece of cardboard. From top left to middle left and bottom left, the images are of: an image of Kevin Richardson, a member of the Central Park Five, emotionally speaking into television microphones with a crowd of dollars behind him with a woman touching his shoulder; a black and white image of the Nazis war criminals on the defense stand surrounded by armed guards with white helmets on during the Nuremberg Trials; a picture of the current supreme court justices in their official robes with a red velvet backdrop. The images from top right to middle right and bottom right are images of: robin hood wearing his traditional green hat while holding his bow and arrows with a nature backdrop; an image of OJ Simpson during his trial, putting on the alleged black gloves in front of the courtroom; an image of alleged murderer Luigi Mangione during his trial, wearing a red sweater and white oxford shirt with an officer's midsection in the background. On the right of the cardboard next to the pictures is “ IS IT JUSTICE?” vertically written in black sharpie with a white backdrop.

An exploration of modern ideas of who or what we might think embodies justice.

-Jack C.

This image is a sketch of three animals on a tan piece of paper. On the far left is a lion that holds a sword. In the middle is an owl that carries a scale. And on the far right is an elephant that wears a blindfold.

….I chose animals to represent justice because they offer a more universal and impartial
approach, free from human biases. The traditional portrayal of Lady Justice as a white woman
has long been a barrier to fostering trust within marginalized communities, particularly people of
color, who may view the justice system as biased or untrustworthy. The animals I selected each
embody different aspects of justice that I believe are crucial to the ideal of fairness: the lion
represents strength, the owl represents wisdom, and the elephant symbolizes empathy…

-KJ M.

Mixed-media piece featuring a cut-out bronze statue of Lady Justice at the center, a mirror covering the space her face would typically occupy. Lady Justice sits upon a bright pink background, surrounded by an inner-border of tangerine orange and an outer-border of cherry red

….In reading on race in comics, editors disagreed with how artists portrayed individuals. Perhaps in order to pursue equity in our sociopolitical landscape today, we should take a hard look in the mirror….We should think about how we let the visual define and articulate our relationships to each other….

-Hadley F.

This is a line-art, simplistic drawing of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at. She is wearing her typical red robe and drawn in an Egyptian style, shoulders to the front but face and feet to the side. She is holding a scale of justice, sword, and is wearing a blindfold. The background is yellow.

…I discovered Ma’at, the goddess of justice, truth, balance, and order. All four of these things
are ideas that I think Western justice includes…When I decided to draw
her, I chose to replace her scepter and Ankh, Egyptian symbols of life and power, with the symbols
that our Western Lady Justice is typically depicted with. I replaced her scepter with the scale of
justice, just as she is sometimes drawn next to her scale to weigh the heart against her feather. I
replaced her Ankh with the sword, and added a blindfold as the third typical piece of a Western
Lady Justice…

-Madeleine L.