Women's Prison and Art Quietly Coexist in New York

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By Reuters

Published: 01/02/2003

When art handlers from trendy New York galleries first noticed women whistling at them from the small windows of a non-descript building, they had no idea it was a prison.
Once discovered, the little-noticed jail held a natural appeal for acclaimed Irish artist Brian Maguire, who had painted portraits of men in Brazil's most notorious prison and coaxed fine art out of jailed militants from both sides of Northern Ireland's bitter divide between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
Over a 17-month period starting last year, Maguire and 13 women prisoners in the Bayview Correctional Facility in New York told stories and painted oil canvasses in bright colors, portraying a mixture of sadness, fear and hope.
Some of the works form part of 'The Bayview Project' exhibition running through mid-December at White Box gallery on West 26th Street, just a few blocks from the prison, which incongruously coexists with the art scene that has sprung up in the last five years in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.
Maguire, a taut, gray-haired man with a lived-in face and guileless smile that charmed his prison pupils, said the first thing he did was ask pairs of friends in the 331-bed minimum security prison to paint each other.
'They are all wearing these green boiler suits, but they used mauves and reds, and it just really struck me the brightness with which they viewed each other,' Maguire said.
With their consent, Maguire painted portraits of the women and encouraged them to pick up his brushes and oils and create paintings about their families, their fears and their hopes.
Maguire would not have found the prison or negotiated with state authorities to work there if it had not been for fellow Irishman and curator Fergus McCaffrey.
McCaffrey became aware of the prisoners because the art handlers and restorers working for the galleries 'were getting whistled at by the girls' and his interest was piqued.
'How many people in this community, this art world, are aware that there is a women's prison here and is there any way for the prisoners and the art world to interact?' McCaffrey asked himself.
He called on Maguire, who had represented Ireland at the 1998 Sao Paolo Biennial, presenting paintings from his workshops in Brazil's biggest prison, Carandiru.
In October 1992 a riot at Carandiru turned into a massacre as military police were called in and 111 prisoners were killed. The prison was closed two months ago.
Maguire has run art workshops in Belfast prisons with Catholic guerrillas of the Irish Republican Army fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland. He also entered the world of pro-British Protestant guerrillas on the other side of the conflict, with imprisoned members of the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force taking part in his workshops.
The 12-year project was linked to the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. Some of the prisoners went on to complete degree courses in fine art. In Brazil, Belfast and most recently at Bayview, Maguire said he wanted to bring out the humanity in the prisoners, seeing them as people who change, separating the crime from the person who created the painting. 'I advise prisoners not to give their names in public while they are still exhibiting because mostly what happens is that the work is not reviewed, the crime that got them there is reviewed,' Maguire said in an interview at the gallery.
'Sometimes I am influenced by their way of painting. I have influenced them in their way of painting and then I allow them to influence me in my way of painting,' said Maguire, who turned 50 last year.
Although none of the paintings by the inmates is signed, some have their handwriting.
These range from place names daubed above the innocent, child-like image of the boardwalk at Brooklyn's famous Coney Island resort, to words that carry direct meaning.
'Time...is Passin' you by Enjoy it!' the artist beseeches the viewer in words written next to a painting of a watch against a blue background.
Elizabeth Cassarino, one of the now-released women who took part in 'The Bayview Project,' embraced the workshop and the exhibition as just one of the things she has done to change her life after serving 18 months for attempted coercion.
'I have a lot to be grateful for. The art was one of the most important things,' Cassarino said, while proudly discussing her half-dozen paintings and Maguire's portrait of her hanging on the white walls of the small gallery.
The portrait, with strokes of red, pink, green, yellow, brown and black, is one of four displayed on a 20 feet by 60 feet street billboard on nearby West 20th Street to draw attention to the exhibition.
'Brian draws you the way the light hits you. ... He has a lot of colors in there,' Cassarino, 38, said. 'The forehead could have been bigger but everything else... You've got the crooked eyes, the crow's feet, the crooked nose, the thin lips, square jaw and he got the long neck and high cheek bones.'
Earlier this year, the public display of prison inmate art almost didn't happen. New York State law prevents prisoners making money from art, but prison authorities agreed with the gallery to allow the exhibit because none of the art is to be sold and it will eventually be returned to the women.

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