Prison art exhibition highlights creativity behind bars

Sculptures shaped from bread, soap, Q-Tips and dental floss sit alongside detailed portraits and carefully carved wooden boxes inside a university gallery in Connecticut. The materials may be modest, but the imagination behind them is expansive.

Exhibition reframes life inside Connecticut prisons

The annual Prison Arts Program exhibition, on view at Eastern Connecticut State University, brings together more than 600 works created by 161 artists currently incarcerated in state prisons. The programme is run by Community Partners in Action and has operated since 1978.

Inside the gallery, viewers encounter crocheted cacti, decorated envelopes addressed to family members, cartoon drawings, carved wall hangings and handmade chairs. Some sculptures are fashioned from everyday items available inside correctional facilities — coffee, floor wax, potato chip bags and toilet paper rolls — occasionally combined with pencils, pastels or glue accessed during supervised sessions.

Jeffrey Greene, programme manager since 1991, oversees artist collectives in five state prisons. Every two weeks, participants gather to work together. In facilities without collectives, the organisation provides supplies and, in some cases, meets artists individually.

Many participants use traditional media such as coloured pencils, ballpoint pens and pastels. Others adapt to restrictions, repurposing accessible materials into intricate objects. During collective meetings, artists are sometimes permitted to use items otherwise considered contraband, including glue.

Bryan Moore, who was released from Department of Correction custody in January, joined the programme in 2022. He describes access to materials and a creative community as transformative. While incarcerated, he produced roughly 350 portraits — depicting fellow prisoners, celebrities, pets and family members’ children.

“It’s a lonely place,” Moore says of prison. Developing a skill that others valued, he adds, expanded his ability to connect socially. He believes art provided a constructive outlet, redirecting attention from harmful patterns towards creative focus.

Greene explains that the programme collaborates with vocational initiatives inside prisons. Some participants create jewellery boxes or wall signs in carpentry classes; others work in prison industries workshops. One artist, Edwin Leon, upholstered a leather armchair carved with the silhouette of Batman and the word “Gotham” across its back. The piece, created during downtime in an industries workshop, is part of this year’s exhibition.

After the show closes, most works will be sent to the artists’ families. Several participants have built dollhouses for their daughters; one features miniature furniture and painted details referencing children’s television characters, with family nicknames carved into its pink roof.

Karim Ismaili, president of the university and a criminologist by training, says the exhibition encourages viewers to look beyond the single criminal act that led to incarceration. The artwork, he notes, reflects imagination and persistence despite difficult circumstances.

For Greene, the initiative also shapes the internal culture of correctional facilities. Positive engagement, he argues, influences the broader environment and offers families a source of pride where there may previously have been only stigma.

The exhibition runs until 28 February at the Fine Arts Instructional Center gallery on campus, inviting the public to consider creativity emerging from within prison walls.

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