I have a new piece that I’m excited to share with everyone, it was made in response to an essay written by William Buck, who is incarcerated at Stateville Prison just outside of Chicago. I was struck by Buck’s references to fate, chance, destiny, and the lack of control he felt about the direction of his life from a very early age. My piece is abstract but it responds to these sentiments. It is a 2D work depicting the odds of rolling different sets of dice at a game of craps. I’ve illustrated a dice probability chart using black and white photo paper and a cameraless process called chemigram. You can see it at the show which opens Thursday April 14th, please see the announcement below and RSVP on Facebook.
The Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project (PNAP) and the Social Justice Initiative present an exhibition making connections between artists in and outside of prison. Chicago-area artists were commissioned to respond to writing developed by men in PNAP’s Freedom Dreams cultural studies class at Stateville Prison. Together, their writings and art works – ranging from print and sculpture to photography and collage – urges the public to reconsider, rethink, and reimagine what freedom means, especially in the context of an ever-growing prison nation.
Artists:
Assata’s Daughters: Eric Blackmon
Dorothy Burge: Gerald Reed
Cairá Lee Conner: Ricky Patterson
Eve Ewing: P. Hartsfield
Krista Franklin: Demetrius Cunningham
Aaron Hughes: Dustin Sherwood Clay
Damon Locks: Abdul Malik Muhammad
Victoria Martinez: Marcus Buchannan
Sherwin Ovid: Derrick “Ricky” Echols
Fereshteh Toosi: William Buck
Monica Trinidad: Rodney Clemons
Mirtes Zwierzynsky: Kiar Brown
Co-curated by Alice Kim, Ivan Arenas and Sarah Ross.
Special thanks to UIC Social Justice Initiative and the Propeller Fund for supporting this project.