well-guarded hobby shop:
no sharp-edged tools, no
oil paints with chemicals that could be used for tattoos and no canvases larger than the storage locker lest the works get stolen or vandalized at night.
Washington, who goes by Mr. Wash, spent more than 20 years behind bars for three nonviolent drug offenses he said he did not commit. Over those two dark decades in various correctional institutions, Mr. Wash painted photo-realistic portraits of other inmates up to 75 works a year, he said, factoring in his other drawings and tattoo designs and gained attention in the media along the way.
Fulton Leroy Washington, a.k.a. Mr. Wash, taught himself to paint while serving a life sentence in prison for nonviolent drug offenses he said he did not commit.
Featured in In the Chilling Shadows of a Biennial Yet to Be Seen
‘Made in L.A. 2020: a version’, slated to open in 2021, exposes the horrors of American life pre-pandemic
Before entering the long-delayed (and now revised) ‘Made in L.A. 2020: a version’, I pitied its poor curators, whose exhibition has been kyboshed by a succession of lockdowns. Originally scheduled to open in June, the biennial – split this year between the Hammer Museum and the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in San Marino – has lain partly dormant, partly unfinished. With (almost) all works installed, museum leaders allowed in a few members of the press, who, they hoped, might grant ‘Made in L.A. 2020’ a little exposure to daylight. (The biennial is currently expected to open to the public next year.)