Arts & Culture
Prison experience infuses artist’s work
By Danilo Wrightsell
Art-enthusiast Nastasia James did a few double takes before she figured out just what kind of art she was looking at that evening in a Manhattan gallery.
“When I walked in, at first, I was a bit confused [about] why I was seeing urinals,” said James, a jewelry designer, who was being introduced to artist Sherrill Roland and his work.
“But then I went ahead and read the artist’s statement,” she added, realizing “it is [a] representation of prison art.”
“The Turning Away From,” which opened at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, is native North Carolinian Roland’s critique of the criminal justice system and his way of advocating for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. He spent a year in a District of Columbia Department of Corrections facility before being exonerated in 2013.
“I’m approaching a long time since I’ve been incarcerated, and the work is removing a lot of myself,” Roland said. “[My] work is getting far away from me emotionally, which I’m happy about. Because that means personally I’m evolving and I’m growing away from that experience.”
Roland said his latest project consists of 19 original sculptures and paintings using materials connected to his time spent in prison. He “ only [used] things I could touch, eat or wear while I was incarcerated. So, that’s where you get the steel and the Kool-Aid and the glass, the toilets, the fan,” Ashville-born Roland said.
The exhibit is Roland’s second in New York.
The opening reception drew people of varying colors and creeds, including some long-time followers of Roland’s work.
The three sculptures on the main floor of the gallery were entitled “Courtship,” crafted of old prison urinals and sinks salvaged from Roland’s hometown after the devastation of 2014’s Hurricane Helene.
Danger and duality are common themes of Roland’s work;
“A toilet is a very intimate domain,” Roland said. “Your bathroom is a very intimate domain. But in prison, you are forced to share this space with somebody else. You’re not choosing.”
The toilets were constructed to resemble familiar gestures such as hugs to embody union. Given the contrast between a toilet and a hug, it also aims to provoke empathy and discomfort.
“I wanted to lead you or the viewer to a different type of surreal way of describing my relationship with this idea around forced courtship,” Roland said. What conflict is there in being forced into a courtship while in prison?
It’s been over a decade since Roland’s exoneration and he is still grappling with his time behind bars. He still reflects on who and what he was forced to be in prison.
His connection to that cell has inspired an unconventional take on traditional portraits, which Roland prefers to refer to as abstract.
“Portraits #826” depicts the traditional 9×9 Sudoku board in a newspaper app. Engraved lines separate smaller boxes within the large box, each 3×3 grid missing two boxes and drawing the eyes to the Xs.
The difference is this work is nearly seven feet tall. Some numbers are black, while others are mirrors. Each individualgrid is roughly about the size of a man’s fist. And, instead of using the traditional one through nine to solve the puzzle, Roland replaces them with his nine-digit federal prisoner identification number.
“[This is] what the system does by making you into a number in a very reductive way,” he said. “These abstractions through this Sudoku puzzle is a way of, like, um, putting numbers in boxes and, then, also reducing the person. “
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a Black man is six times more likely to be incarcerated in the United States than a white man is. Black people represent 13.6% of the American population, but account for 53% of 3,200 exonerations in the registry as of August 8, 2022, according to a report from Axios.
“My dad died when I was young. He was shot when I was really young,” said Roland, whose show runs through July 31.
At 17, during his first personal encounter with the law, the precinct revealed a lot for young Sherrill Roland, telling him that his father, too, had a previous criminal record.
“When they ran my name, they brought him up. So, I got to see him through the system.”
One of the officers even jokingly said “They say you got a gun charge in 77, you don’t even look like it.” Roland recalled. “I was, like, ‘I got a what?!’”
They gave Roland his father’s prisoner ID number, which the artist incorporated in “Portraits #826.” Roland delved into his father’s history and the reality of generational curses.
“He took it to another level,” said Ambiorx Santos, an artist from the Dominican Republic and longtime friend of Roland, describing the show as “simply beauty.”