The sketches in this gallery resulted after having been asked, one spare 15 minutes by a prisoner in HMP Parc, whether I could draw portraits and if so would I draw him. Prison is a strange world where restrictions on seemingly, everyday things spawns ingenious solutions. An example being that prisoners cannot have photographs of themselves sent out to families and loved ones- for a man on a long sentence this can cause stress as children grow up without seeing their dad- but drawn portraits, however, are permitted.
Before I began drawing a few conditions needed to be agreed.
Since that day I have drawn hundreds of prisoners.
Each portrait takes about 15 minutes to complete opening doors to many closed worlds.
One day, haven gotten the reputation as ‘the bloke who draws you’ a prisoner who had been studying art asked me If he could draw my portrait. The roles were reversed. His picture is the one on the left. It’s probably the best.
