Convictions: art from Long Bay 1986-2005

Convictions includes more than seventy works representing nearly twenty years of artmaking inside Long Bay. The exhibition highlights the creative innovations and cultural expressions that make Sydney's best-known prison such an unusual arena for art practice.

Many of the exhibits have been produced by inmates in the Art Unit, a full-time art program in a maximum-security area within Long Bay's Metropolitan Special Programs Centre. There are also works from art classes operating in the various other centres at Long Bay, including the Long Bay Hospital.

The exhibition demonstrates that art by prison inmates is rarely the dark portrayal of alienation or despair that one might expect. Many of Long Bay's artists have transformed the repetitive, everyday aspects of prison life into images full of visual paradox, colour and exuberance. Their works range from vibrant abstract spirals to complex geometric grids inspired by the patterns of wire mesh within the prison.

The quest for structures of aesthetic intrigue has been a recurring phenomenon at Long Bay. In part it can be attributed to a studio situation where inmates from different cultural backgrounds work side by side, their individual projects influencing each other and encouraging interest in alternative ways of seeing. A remarkable example of this cross-fertilisation is the interaction between Indigenous and modernist modes of representation.

Among the figurative works, there are scenes of prison spaces and social interactions, but also dream-like representations of freedom and release. Other artists find their escape in objects of creative fascination, whether they be lush studies of burgeoning flowers, or intricate constructions of salvaged materials. Convictions includes a number of sculptural assemblages, such as a model of one of Long Bay's most iconic cell blocks, and an intricate box of symbolic objects representing the artist’s life.

Convictions has been curated by Sue Paull, the Visual Arts Coordinator in the Metropolitan Special Programs Centre at Long Bay. Sue Paull has been encouraging art at Long Bay since 1986. She is the founder of both the Art Unit and the Boom Gate Gallery, a weekend exhibition space inside the main entrance to the prison complex, where inmates have the opportunity to display and sell their work.

For further information, please contact Ivan Dougherty Gallery.