Gallery Response 2 KA

At Home With Family, 2021

Holding Orange for Jason Strong, 2018

Jason Strong Full Interview

 

    One work from the exhibition Thank God, I’m Home: First Meal that stands out to me is Julie Green’s Holding Orange for Jason Strong, 2018. This piece was made using acrylic paint on Tyvek material. Red is the only color of acrylic paint that was used, but varied shades and lines create depth and detail. The painting is large and is mostly filled by a ceramic plate accompanied by the full interview that inspired the piece, as well as the corner of another ceramic plate. The objects are set against a background of thick lines that I interpret to be a wooden table the plates are set on. The main plate features intricate designs, including those of cardinals and violets, Illinois’ state bird and flower. It also has images of orange trees, a hand holding an orange, a bacon mushroom cheeseburger, a building reflective of traditional Japanese architecture, and various other flora. The main message I interpreted from visiting this work is the emphasis on the power of the freedom to make choices and how this right practically evaporates after one enters the prison system. Those of us in the “outside world” often take the mundane things in our lives for granted and fail to realize how our ability to make choices drives a large portion of our lives. It is almost impossible for some to imagine being denied the right to make simple choices, but this is the reality for many who are incarcerated in the U.S. So while it is important for people to appreciate their rights, abilities, and what they have, it is just as crucial to question the extent to which it is necessary for those who are incarcerated to lose the same things. Holding Orange for Jason Strong stresses how incarceration directly relates to the deprivation and absence of possibilities, from what a person can do or eat to who they can see and when, and raises questions for its audience about how this equates to justice. Within a system where justice is found in punishment and freedom is seen as a privilege, how can we effectively make progress towards finding the truth in cases like Jason Strong’s and create positive change? This piece also uses Strong’s personal narrative to address how a person’s memories and decisions are directly tied to their identity, which becomes vulnerable in the negative environment produced by prisons. The everlasting impacts of incarceration become even more clear in Strong’s decision to advocate for other wrongfully convicted people. Instead of distancing himself from the prison system, Strong is determined to utilize his freedom to make an impact, “I needed the agency to make my own decisions about who and how I wanted to be in the world. I wanted to have a voice [...]. Only this time, I wanted it on my own terms,” (Kimberly Drew, 58). 

    Another work from the exhibition that stands out to me is Green’s At Home With Family, 2021. The piece was done on Tyvek material and is made of acrylic paint, glow in the dark paint, fabric, thread, and 24K gold. This work uses a visually distinct color palette of purple, gold, and white to depict inside a home from an aerial view, specifically using an attribute of Japanese art called fukinuki yatai (“blown away roof”). There are golden clouds and purple trees to “look through”, and the purple house comes to life from paint and different fabrics. There is a family gathered around a table sharing a meal, with a man on the far left looking out the window at the audience. The man is identified to be Robert Hill, an exoneree and subject of the piece. The main message I interpreted from visiting this work is that incarceration leaves a long-lasting and far-reaching impact on the lives of the people who experience it and those they are connected to. It is about how incarceration strips a person of more than just their basic human rights, like choice with Holding Orange for Jason Strong, but how it seizes their time with family and strains their relationships. In turn, this affects larger communities, such as the Black community, whose members are disproportionately affected by wrongful accusations, “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered,” (Ta-Nehisi Coates). The meal is not the key focus of this piece, the completed family sharing it is. 

    These works can be seen as activist because they protest unjust incarceration through raising awareness about the history of wrongful imprisonment and the poor conditions within prisons across the U.S., as well as by sharing the personal narratives of those who have experienced them. Green’s pieces also present eye-opening statistics about the thousands of exonerations of people who were wrongfully imprisoned and the many factors and mistakes that led to their imprisonment. While human error plays a role in these mistakes, significant flaws in the balance of power and the interests of influential figures drive this ongoing social justice issue. The need for change and reform cannot be ignored, “Clearly we cannot dismantle a system as long as we engage in collective denial about its impact on our lives,” (bell hooks, 24).