Artists in the US Prison System

Imagine making a paint brush from your own hair and then creating a painting with coffee as the only “paint” available. Now visualize your studio being a small windowless cell in the middle of a high security prison. Welcome to the world of prisoner art… the real outsider art, where art making is the only way of staying sane in a brutal environment. The Fortune Society (a non-profit organization that educates the public on criminal justice issues) just concluded its fifth annual Prisoner Art Show at the Lab Gallery in New York, where all works displayed were created by men and women incarcerated in the US prison system (view the entire Prisoner Art Show here). The artworks range from the naïve to the sophisticated, but they all represent the efforts of individuals struggling to maintain their humanity.