ARTIST STATEMENT
September 23, 2012, 12” x 17 3/4", Graphite Pencil on Paper
“My cellmate does not like the smell of paint so I place my fan in the window. Columbia is the only max prison where we can open the window. My cellmate has an issue with the light on most of the day and most of the night so I take one of my personal towels and drape it off of the side of the bed and he retreats into the darkness.
I take the trash can, set it on the desk, and place a few books in it for weight at the base. We cannot have easels. I lay Masonite board over the can top. I fill an empty (plastic) coffee jar with water so that I can rinse my brushes. I set up what it is I am working on atop this makeshift easel and I step out of my cell and step into my studio! The space if very tiny; it is good for me that my cellmate is the type of person who will lay in front of his TV because this gives me the freedom to move without bumping into each other. The sketch was done in one sitting, without any (or very little) refining.”
“I paint because I must.”
DarRen Morris paints from his memories, his spirituality and his current life inside one of Wisconsin’s maximum-security prisons. He sees the world through pattern and color and light despite being in a place that lacks a full pallet of hues. He has no formal artistic training, so his styles range greatly. He will paint on any surface available, including cardboard. He must paint. It is his way of enduring his life sentence (given at age 17). In prison, he is limited to student grade acrylics and some pastels. He can never stand more than four feet from his work to gain perspective. He paints from his African Jamaican and Rastafarian roots. He often paints semi self-portraits because there are no models for his portraits inside.
When asked why he paints, he responds, “Why do I paint? It is a hard question to answer. It is like, how does a fish breathe in water? I paint because I must. I cannot say when I began my attraction to art because as long as I can remember it has always been a part of me. It goes back so far that I cannot trace it to a particular point. Shapes and colors have always stood out to me. As a kid, I really didn’t talk a lot. I had a hearing impairment that hadn’t been treated yet, but I didn’t know I heard differently. So for me, my experience of the world was always based on mostly what I saw. Colors and shapes just always stood out. I remember the world visually. As a boy, every opportunity I got I would be sketching and drawing, although I did not know then that there were actual Black artists. Art is innate for me; it is deeply ingrained into who I have always been. Now, in prison, it is my survival.”