Visions of Emprisonment
Michael Cohn
the work of artists incarcerated at prisons around the country. Many of the
exhibits, which appeared at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park South, have
a political bent, demonstrating that while these artists are confined, they
remain engaged with the world outside. Often the works refer to the artist’s
imprisonment, with bars, cell windows, guard posts, and penitentiary walls
occurring as frequent motifs. Prison rules restrict the materials utilized by
these artists. One cannot use pen and ink anymore, he writes, and another is
not permitted to paint or sculpt. But the artists make the best use they can of
the materials available in their cells.
Blind Faith
style=’font-family:Verdana’> by Bill Saunders of New York, NY, employs
watercolor, gouache, toothpaste, and toilet paper to show an African-American
man blindfolded by an American flag. He appears to be a victim of the American
justice system and its blind patriotism. Sometimes the materials are as simple
as a handkerchief, as in an untitled pen drawing by Freddy Vegas, Jr. of
Lovelady, Texas, whose phantasmagoric imagery juxtaposes a clock, a tiger,
clowns, and Latinos, with a grim guard post. An eight ball sits in front and a
calendar shows the long days ahead.
You Touch Me I’ll Kill
Me, a pen and pencil drawing by
Derek Barbeau of Gardner, Mass, presents a stark image of a little girl wearing
a short skirt facing a corner wall with a crucifix dangling from her hand. A
discarded ball lies at her feet, mirroring the little ball earrings in her
ears. In a comment alongside the work, Barbeau writes of his “dark, emotional
pain, the silent screaming and the torture of a subconscious mind.” The seeming
innocence and vulnerability of the child contrast with the abuse and pain she
may be suffering as she tries to ward off the hurt of an angry adult world.
Another striking image
comes from Michael Smith of Beaumont, Texas. His pen and colored pencil
drawing, In a World of Shit,
portrays a strait-jacketed clown being flushed down a toilet, with teardrops on
his cheeks and a comical heart springing from his lopsided top hat. A life is
being disposed of, sucked away into the sewers. Another clown painting, I’m
in the Band by Valentino Gonzalez
of Rosharon, Texas, shows a prisoner in pinstripes with a red nose and half his
face painted, playing a ukulele. A dove flies free above his head, escaping
from confinement.
The pastel Solitude
style=’font-family:Verdana’> by Rodney Dent of Marion, Ill., shows a bearded
man wearing a long tunic, sitting alone on a stone bench in a dungeon cell, the
only light is coming from a barred window high above his head. The pinkish tint
and somber shadows convey a despairing mood as the prisoner sits staring at the
floor.
Also from Texas comes Lone
Star Hell by John Adams of
Tennessee Colony. His painting depicts a bearded man imprisoned inside a map of
the state of Texas, set against the background of an American flag. A bar code surrounds
the man like the bars of a cell that he parts with his hands to yell out. Texas
seems to be on fire, with flames licking its edges. The prisoner struggles to
break free from the numbered and impersonalized regimentation of the world in
which he is held captive.
There are many drawings
and paintings of animals on view, with horses and western themes especially
popular. Several works show Native Americans, like Shaman
style=’font-family:Verdana’>, by Jesse Covarrubias of Midway, Texas, which
portrays a Native American atop an eagle’s head with a buffalo beneath and a
snake and lizard on either side. African American themes are also popular, as
in Body and Soul by Lance Jett
of Soledad, Calif. The ink drawing depicts a winged African American angel
holding a man with his head bent and arms outstretched over a woman sitting on
the ground, as if a sheltering angel is preparing to carry them away from their
despair.
Cabin in the Midst of
Chaos, a surreal-looking acrylic
painting from Tom Silverstein of Leavenworth, Kansas, represents a shadowy
figure flying alongside a soaring bird, with a prison lookout post on top.
Silverstein offers a vision of a far mountaintop with purple clouds and a sun
rising above the water. Desperate-looking eyes with teardrops stare from
beneath the waves. Below is a cell where men cry out in pain behind bars, with
their fingers grasping like claws. In the foreground stands a multicolored
figure with lights radiating from his head. This artist, like the others, tries
to imagine a way out of the frightening world in which he is imprisoned.
