Kentucky artist raising awareness for racial inequality

The horse will be complete sometime in April and will used during the Horse Mania event this summer

LEXINGTON, Ky (WTVQ)- One Kentucky artist from Scott County is using his talents to raise awareness of the racial inequalities in the world.

Dan Barnes says he followed the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd stories and those incidents led him to want to make a difference.
He designed a horse statue for the LexArt Horse Mania event. But when it didn’t get sponsored, he decided to sponsor it himself after some encouragement from one of his friends of color.

Barnes used $7,500 dollars of his own money and is now painting the horse in an African theme with BLM, meaning “Black Lives Matter,” on the side.
We caught up with Barnes at this weekend’s Crafted Market, where he is painting the statue.
He says the goal is “not” to make a political statement, but create unity for something close to his heart.

“The title is “Black Lives Matter.” Now, my goal is not to make some giant statement, as much as it is to spark dialogue. I want people to talk about this and get it out there. Because I think the reality is we’re all humans on this planet and we should take care of each other. We should love each other. And it should be an equal thing for everybody,” Barnes said.

The horse will be complete sometime in April and will used during the Horse Mania event this summer.
A GoFundMe has been started to help barnes with the project. You can find that here.