by On a low whitewashed outhouse on the grounds of HMP Grendon, close to double rows of high barbed wire fences, an image of Elvis as a cowboy with David Bowie’s orange skull cuts a surreal figure. The image announces a new studio-cum-art gallery at Europe’s only fully therapeutic prison, where 260 inmates – 70% of them for life – spend five days a week in therapy facing their crimes. “We’re the only prison in the country that doesn’t have a segregation unit but has an art gallery,” says Grendon’s head of clinical services, Richard Shuker.
The Bowie/Elvis work is part of a show called Imposter Syndrome by artist Dean Kelland, the result of an almost five-year residency organized by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham at an all-male category B prison, located in the Buckinghamshire countryside. A group of us have passed through those large chain-mesh fences, past the security gates and a sniffer dog to visit Kelland’s show along with the presentation of the prisoners’ artwork. Despite all these precautions, there is a celebratory mood as prisoners, prison staff and guards crowd in, chat and admire the works.
Paintings of Noel Gallagher, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, vibrant hummingbirds, rainbow flowers, prints of peace signs, sketches of moths and bees crowd the walls, salon style. A depressing canvas depicts a shaved head with prison bars growing through the person’s skin, which twists into a bite. “It’s about how the prison environment is embedded in you, no matter what your stance is against it,” says its creator, N from wing D. The men are very expressive about their work, not it is surprising because of the amount of time they spend in small groups forensically separating their crimes, from armed robbery and rape to child abuse and murder.
High above our heads, a large monochrome self-portrait shows a prisoner removing the front panel of his face to reveal a frightened child clutching his knees in an empty prison cell. Another canvas shows a tortured prisoner with a hammer inside a head made of bricks, clawing his way to freedom. “I made a series of pictures about what’s on the inside, behind the masks we wear all the time,” a prisoner called B from C wing tells me.
B has been in institutions since he was 11. But Grendon is different, the prisoners say: he lacks the hierarchy and violence of ordinary prisoners. “There are no fights here, people can express themselves,” a prisoner writes poetic notes. “In other prisons you would be seen as weak because of that and you could be open to bullying.” Grendon was founded in 1962 as a radical cerebral experiment and is divided into five wings (communities) of about 40 men plus an induction unit. Prisoners must apply to enter prison and spend up to six months being assessed before they can begin the four-year intensive therapy. Some can’t hack the rigorous examination and want to return to what they know, but statistics from criminal studies show that inmates who complete at least 18 months of therapy at Grendon are 20 to 25% less likely to commit they re-offend than in normal prisons.
“Prison can re-traumatize people and if you don’t address it, it’s persistent,” a female therapist (or facilitator, as they’re called at Grendon) tells me. “You have to believe that people change. I’ve seen it.” Shuker agrees: “What’s unique here is that everyone feels like they’re part of a shared goal. They want it to work. At Grendon we say: ‘This is your prison, it’s your responsibility to make it safe, to resolve your differences.’”
All decisions are made democratically, by vote – including the choice of artist-in-residence. Kelland tells the interview he did with the men before accepting him on the scheme. “One of them asked me what my work was about and I told him ‘flawed masculinity, cycles of failure’. And he said: ‘Well, you’re in the best place then. You won’t find more faults than here.’”
But Kelland, who describes himself as a “working-class lad from Great Barr”, has come without judgement, tasked with supporting the prisoners in their artistic pursuits and working on the experience. The prints, collages and films they jointly developed are an expression of the trust he managed to build in the prison community. Masks are a central motif in Kelland’s show, partly because of the anonymity requirement for the men involved and because of his interest in the idea of social veneration, which combines neatly with the fact that A lot of the psychodrama that men do involves masks. .
Among the most powerful works in Imposter Syndrome is a multi-channel video installation, Absolute Beginners (2022), featuring portraits of men wearing neutral masks. Shot in semi-darkness, it shows the moment when everyone faces their reflection in a mirror after years of not seeing themselves in some situations. Most men struggle to keep their own gaze through the eye holes of the white mask, looking down or away soon. “It was really disconcerting,” N tells me. “It felt like being stripped bare. I felt a twinge of sadness that I had spent my life wearing the armor and the masks.” At Ikon, where the main iteration of Impostor Syndrome is on display, the images of the men are projected onto a monolithic black cylinder and the audience has to walk around it to see them, disrupting the circular flow of the prison yard’s activity .
The level of inmate engagement with Kelland’s work is evident in a chat wall set up by the artist at Grendon, reproduced at the Ikon show. You can see how ideas emerged and then expanded as Kelland would paste notes and images as the men jotted down their answers. Elvis was a great touchstone, embodying the ideal of men and their failure. Photographs of the singer alongside Grayson Perry, Boy George, Tupac Shakur and Bowie show an intense exploration of male role models. David Beckham didn’t make the grade, though, and has a huge cross across his face.
The film performance So the Days Float Through My Eyes (2023) is the culmination of Kelland’s collaboration with the prisoners. A ragtag group of men in printed Bowie masks (including Kelland) stand in a silent row. They step forward in turn, holding placards with lyrics from Bowie’s 1971 hit Changes who seem impressed with their imprisoned situation: “I’ve never seen how the other people treat the faker who see” and “So I turned to face me. “. Kelland originally planned for the men to wear the signs, but they told him that didn’t work. “Those little victories for me are where they felt justified and were able to say: ‘No, Dén, do it this way'” says the artist. “That’s huge.”
The Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust launched a prison artist residency in 2011 and Ikon came on board in 2014. Since then, the gallery has expanded the scope of the program, installing artist in prison, James Latunji- Cockbill, who Kelland led the establishment of the art studio and gallery at Grendon. It changed the goalposts and ambition of the project, according to Latunji-Cockbill: “We’ve seen the traditional arts and crafts of the prison almost fall by the wayside as our group’s artwork is more like a fine art practice.” As well as helping the prisoners with painting and drawing, Kelland has set up a screen printing press and invited other artists to teach them etching. After seeing the huge benefits, Ikon hopes to roll out this workshop model to other prisons.
At a symposium held after viewing the exhibition, several inmates give speeches about how working with Kelland has changed their art and their lives. “Every Wednesday, when I go to the workshop, I’m reminded that I’m not just an offender – I have a voice through art,” says M from A wing, who has won silver for the past two years in the annual commemoration. Koestler prison art awards for his textile works. M’s entry this year was a pair of blue fabric therapy chairs he had sewn with bright yellow words used in counseling sessions. “For me it was about the chairs talking about all the people who sat in them and talked about their lives. Those chairs have so many secrets,” he explains. Similarly, B from C’s wing speaks enthusiastically of how valuable it was to receive constructive feedback about his art. “Prison is a harsh place – usually, people will say, ‘Fuck off you prick’ – but working with someone in the arts, it’s wholesome, it nourishes the soul. This is what drives us forward, to be part of something much bigger than us.”
As we are herded out of the prison complex under high lights, like triffids, rabbits scurry irresponsibly along the tending grass verges. It seems to go without saying that art and therapy can play a huge role in rehabilitation. Kelland is happy with what he and Ikon have achieved: “What we have are prisoners who will leave after working with us, who will see the possibility of working in a creative practice and may even become a artists themselves. I will.”
