LANDSCAPE
Featured
June, 2020
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000715
Once my son asked me what’s it like in prison. I told him it’s like a huge cliff with the ocean at its border. At first glance, the waves that’s crashing on the rocks don't seem like it’s doing anything. But each time that water hits that rock, it’s taking a tiny piece of it. Forever changing it.
July, 2019
14" x 18"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000637
Inspired by the Gospel of John 7:38. He that believeth in me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And the Church song my granny use to sing down by the river side. I don't know any other words to the song. Other than the refrain. On this my 43rd Earth day (7) The biblical number of completion. What have I completed and what have I only began? Being imprisoned and claiming my freedom. I am convinced that the scene in this painting is a real place, so I challenge mall to identify it so I can visit when I am free send me all your answers.
October, 2017
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000587
Inside this prison environment there are all sorts of people. It would be a betrayal of our intelligence to assume that individuals in any one group means that each of those people are exactly the same.
It would be unfair for a prisoner to say that all guards are unfeeling just as it would be equally incorrect to assume that prisoners are all one way.
For those of us trapped behind these walls, the experiences and perspectives are unique and specific to each individual.
For some, it is a religious retreat where they find the truth of their spiritual selves.
There are others who will be traumatized beyond repair by the normal conditions of confinement.
There are still others who will be inflamed past control over every injustice that takes place inside the walls.
And then there are some who can sit in the prison courtyard, surrounded by all of these energies, and fade into the pastel colors of the sky and take flight into the magic of seeing a bird take flight. I have never seen these birds in person before.
Yet I fly with them.
July 29, 2010
9" x 12"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000156
I resisted the suggestion of my cellmate to paint the fence and bars that separate me from this tree. The cage that contains me does not contain this beauty of nature and if the person looking at the painting did not know that they may think that the tree was caged in. The tree is free and I celebrate its freedom.
2009
18" x 14"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000071
This painting was based on my memories of my time in Jamaica. A picture on my granny's wall. I am not sure if it was a photo or a professional photo. I was thinking of what it would be like to be at home, sitting there, enjoying a smoke and drawing and to hear my Babe call my name and wonder was I dreaming or if she would have really given it all up for me to hang out with me on this simple rock.