Jeffrey Green: How art changes prison

Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art presents fine art exhibitionestablished in Connecticut Correctional Services over the past three decades.

The exhibition, organized by Jeffrey Green (curator of the exhibition and correctional program), includes works by about thirty current and former prisoners, including Edward Schank, John J. Arnold, Mark Despres, Veronica May Clark, Nicholas Palumbo, Ross von Weingarten, Ryan Carpenter, Norberto Martinez and others.

“The prisoners in the program stop thinking about the artist as someone they can become, but someone they can get out of themselves,” Green says. “They stop thinking about art as something that is in the center of a piece of paper, but rather that it can extend from their cage to the moon. In the oppressive environment of the prison, they need what they control; they need to express and confirm that they are still on their own; they need to send to the world that which expresses their desire to love and be loved. They have every reason to do art. ”