Horses of Honor: A Tribute to Omaha's Fallen Police Officers
UNO art professor Jave Yoshimoto is one of eight Omaha artists participating in the public art campaign.
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Seven of the horses on display will memorialize specific police officers and an eighth will represent all fallen officers.
Yoshimoto begins to unveil his horse that he will be painting to honor the late officer Greg Hamill.
Horses of Honor began in Chicago in 2014 and expanded to Omaha this year. Each installation benefits police related charities.
Yoshimoto begins sketching the design on the horse in the Weber Fine Arts building. He freehanded the outline with a pencil before starting the shading with acrylic paint.
The project took a little over a month to complete.
Another statue will honor Kobus, the Omaha police dog killed during a standoff in January 2016.
UNO is the sponsor of Yoshimoto’s horse, which will be on display in Turner Park for one year beginning on May 20th, 2016.
When art history professor Jave Yoshimoto received the phone call to be one of the featured artists at Horses of Honor Omaha, he got right to work.
“I love my job and I want to do my department proud, so I was more than happy to jump on board,” he said.
Horses of Honor is a public art campaign to honor police officers who have been killed or catastrophically injured in the line of duty. It started in Chicago in 2014 and this year is the first time Omaha will serve as a host.
There will be eight horses paying tribute to Omaha’s fallen police officers. Each statue was designed by an Omaha artist. They will stand in Turner Park at Midtown Crossing for a year before being auctioned off.
Yoshimoto’s horse is honoring the late Greg Hamill, a former detective and 12-year veteran of the Omaha Police Department. Hamill passed away from complications of the H1N1 strain of influenza in 2014. He was 43.
Yoshimoto reached out to Hamill’s family to see what kind of elements they wanted to be incorporated into the piece. He received a Bible verse and a picture of the Celtic cross, which Hamill had tattooed on his back.
“The rest is my understanding of visual symbolism,” he added.
I love my job and I want to do my department proud, so I was more than happy to jump on board.
Yoshimoto did all of the work on the life-size horse right in his own office. After a few days of brainstorming he had his idea for a theme. Each aspect pays tribute to the officer, his background, the department for which he served, and his movement on to the afterlife.
To symbolize the afterlife, Yoshimoto painted a sunset across the horse. He read that some cultures use the crow as a symbol of a carrier to the afterlife, which is why he painted a crow flying towards the sunset.
He chose the buffalo, a sign of strength, as the centerpiece because the animal is depicted on all Omaha police officers’ badges, and it has been since 1941. And, of course, the Omaha skyline serves as a nod to the city the officer spent his life serving.
“It has to tell a story and it has to all connect, to the region to department to the police officer,” said Yoshimoto.