In collaboration with local muralists, youth experiencing incarceration at the juvenile detention center created paintings for the “Freedom of Expression: Artists Incarcerated” gallery.
The gallery is located in Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus, by the east entrance. The three paintings — “Guadalupe’s Dream,” “Mamba Mentality” and “Uptown, Downtown, Spread the Love Around Town” — illustrate the expressiveness and emotion of the youth artists.
“We didn’t know exactly what we were getting into, but it was an amazing experience. It was amazing to see their personalities and their dreams come out,” said Matt Monson, one of the muralists who had worked on the paintings with the youths.
The purpose of the installation is to provide a facet of freedom for those who are incarcerated, giving them an outlet for their emotions and a chance for rehabilitation. At the opening reception of the gallery over the phone, Dr. Anthony Nocella brought an incarcerated individual, Trevor Brown, to the microphone.
Brown, who has been incarcerated for 27 years, spoke about the healing and transformative power of art, saying that art has helped him address his anger issues and learn from his experiences.
“Art is love, power and freedom,” said Brown.
Nocella shared what inspired the collaboration, stating: “We wanted to show that [one], we can build community partnerships, [and] two, that art and poetry are great ways to defer and divert and create alternatives to incarceration and create peace where there’s violence,” shared Nocella.
The installation will be available for public viewing until May 23, afterwards it will be taken to the Capitol building, where it will find its final home in the Salt Lake Valley Juvenile Detention Center it was created in.
“I’m Roofless, NOT Homeless”
The “I’m Roofless, NOT Homeless” installation, located at South City Campus in the George S. & Dolores Dore Eccles Art Gallery, consists of various sculptures and ceramic art. The artwork depicts unhoused people that sculptors Suzanne Storer and Louise Solecki Weir found on their travels.
The sculptures themselves are not named in the exhibit; however, a booklet located in the gallery contains details on the sculptures, reliefs and drawn portraits the artists made. Information includes names of works, stories of the people that inspired some of the works, as well as prices for some of the works.
Storer explained how her grandmother inspired her choice to emphasize individual stories; during The Great Depression, her grandmother used to feed one unhoused person every Sunday. Storer also described a cipher system the unhoused used to let each other know that her grandmother would feed them and if someone had already been fed.
“The more people who see this show, the more people can realize they too can become homeless,” Storer said, as many of the people she and Solecki depict are just people who have fallen on hard times.
One person, named Heather, is the progenitor of the title of the gallery, as she had been very adamant when she talked to Suzanne that she “was roofless, not homeless.”
The portraits and sculptures will be housed in the gallery until May 28. All profits will go to the unhoused.
Both galleries shine light on parts of the population that are often unheard and show the strength and vitality of the people they represent.
Great story. Love the powerful art. Thanks, Lucas