“I was a portrait painter, had done a degree as a mature student and was always interested in human nature and experience. Death Row is one of the few places in the world where people are trying to kill you; most of the time we are trying to extend human life.”
The above quote is from Claire Phillips a portrait artist who has traveled to the USA to paint prisoners on death row. The resulting portraits go on show at The Capitol, Horsham from the 15th of August to the 9th October. The show is titled “The Human Face of Death Row” and will go on tour after its run in The Capitol.
Phillips says she became involved in the project after painting the portrait of Clive Stafford Smith, Director of the death row advocate group Reprieve. While she was painting his portrait, he suggested to her that she should paint the portraits of death row prisoners to give a human face to those who have been demonised as monsters.
Her subjects include Linda Carty (pictured above) who has been on death row in Texas for the last eight years. Her conviction, for killing a neighbour, was based almost entirely on the testimonies of three alleged accomplices, all career criminals. Carty claims she is innocent.
Another subject is Howard Neal, who was sentenced to death in 1982 having been convicted of the murder of his niece and half brother. He has been in and out of mental institutions for most of his life.
According to Rob Sharp in The Independent “The art competently conveys the characters behind the convictions. Neal, who has been in and out of mental institutions for much of his life, stares straight ahead with a look of faint amusement, his head quizzically tilted to one side. Carty, on the other hand, is shown closer up, sporting a look of pinched-lip defiance.”
There is no Irish date for the proposed tour but hopefully it will come here at some stage. I for one will definitely catch it as it promises to be a fascinating insight to a hidden world.
