California Sunshine
12-19-2004, 01:31 PM
New York Art Show Showcases Work by Convicts
Wed Dec 15, 6:32 PM ET U.S. National - Reuters
By Larry Fine
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Skittles candy, old coffee grounds and beet juice liven up works on display at The Prisoner Art Show exhibited this week at a New York gallery.
The show, curated by rock musician Graham Nash, features 130 art works from convicts ranging from portraits of prison life, politics, religion and nature in styles that run the gamut from primitive to painterly and surreal.
Sponsored by prisoner advocacy group The Fortune Society, the exhibit will be displayed at The Lab Gallery through Saturday with a silent auction conducted there and online at fortunesociety.org with proceeds going to the artists.
"In trying to hone down the images from the 200 or so sent in, I started to read how this guy took four months to grow his hair long enough to make brushes," Nash said on Wednesday in a telephone interview from his home in Hawaii.
"It was heart-breaking to reject a piece when I learned the enormous length they went to express themselves, so I had to stop reading and just go on my opinion of the art itself."
Nash, who recently published a book of his photographs, said his favorite piece was a sepia drawing of a man sitting in his cell with what looks like a single beam of sunlight coming through a window onto the art work he was creating.
"There were others that were executed brilliantly, and I don't mean that as a pun, of course," he said. "I thought it encapsulated everything about the screaming for self-expression that a lot of those pieces showed."
Bidding for that piece, "Face - 2004," made from coffee by California inmate Anthony Throop, stood at $85.
Another popular item in the show is a finely carved sculpture of a cowboy made by Texas prisoner Phil Barber, who fashioned the piece from soap bought at the prison commissary.
Barber made handmade tools using Popsicle sticks and wire from staples and paper clips to carve the detail for the sculpture.
Among the highest bid works is a strikingly realistic pencil drawing of a young prisoner leaning against the bars of his cell by Texas convict Marcus Price, titled "Another Day in Paradise," that has received a bid of $350.
Some items are identified by the prisoner's ID number. Others have inscriptions, such as the water color painting "Maize God," by Jeffrey Tiner, that says "Oregon Death Row."
"I felt very much that each piece was like a little bird flying through the bars and flying into the air," Nash said.
Wed Dec 15, 6:32 PM ET U.S. National - Reuters
By Larry Fine
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Skittles candy, old coffee grounds and beet juice liven up works on display at The Prisoner Art Show exhibited this week at a New York gallery.
The show, curated by rock musician Graham Nash, features 130 art works from convicts ranging from portraits of prison life, politics, religion and nature in styles that run the gamut from primitive to painterly and surreal.
Sponsored by prisoner advocacy group The Fortune Society, the exhibit will be displayed at The Lab Gallery through Saturday with a silent auction conducted there and online at fortunesociety.org with proceeds going to the artists.
"In trying to hone down the images from the 200 or so sent in, I started to read how this guy took four months to grow his hair long enough to make brushes," Nash said on Wednesday in a telephone interview from his home in Hawaii.
"It was heart-breaking to reject a piece when I learned the enormous length they went to express themselves, so I had to stop reading and just go on my opinion of the art itself."
Nash, who recently published a book of his photographs, said his favorite piece was a sepia drawing of a man sitting in his cell with what looks like a single beam of sunlight coming through a window onto the art work he was creating.
"There were others that were executed brilliantly, and I don't mean that as a pun, of course," he said. "I thought it encapsulated everything about the screaming for self-expression that a lot of those pieces showed."
Bidding for that piece, "Face - 2004," made from coffee by California inmate Anthony Throop, stood at $85.
Another popular item in the show is a finely carved sculpture of a cowboy made by Texas prisoner Phil Barber, who fashioned the piece from soap bought at the prison commissary.
Barber made handmade tools using Popsicle sticks and wire from staples and paper clips to carve the detail for the sculpture.
Among the highest bid works is a strikingly realistic pencil drawing of a young prisoner leaning against the bars of his cell by Texas convict Marcus Price, titled "Another Day in Paradise," that has received a bid of $350.
Some items are identified by the prisoner's ID number. Others have inscriptions, such as the water color painting "Maize God," by Jeffrey Tiner, that says "Oregon Death Row."
"I felt very much that each piece was like a little bird flying through the bars and flying into the air," Nash said.