Fri 2 Oct 2009
Artwork created by inmates on Arkansas’ Death Row will be featured in the hallway display cases in the Fine Arts Center October 1 – 16. This presentation was designed to complement the current exhibition in the Fine Arts Center Gallery, “Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America.” The Arkansas Death Row inmates artwork includes items made from popsicle sticks, magazine pages, and candy wrappers — as well as a large selection of greeting cards, which are sold to raise funds for the art program’s supplies. While the gallery exhibition features paintings and drawings made by prisoners in art classes, the Arkansas inmates do not have access to such instruction, so their work is all self-designed and limited to the materials they are allowed to work with. Highlights of the display include a shadow box “piano bar” and a chess set — which attest to the inmates’ creativity.