Gary Harrell

By trade Gary Harrell is an artist, entrepreneur, craftsman, and a harmonica blues musician. He was born in Spring Hill, Louisiana, and was raised in Orange County, California. He now resides in Sacramento, California with his wife

In 1977 Gary was incarcerated at San Quentin Prison where he served his sentence until he was paroled in 2020. In 1985, eight years into his sentence, he started making art.

Gary had never considered a career as a visual artist until he was introduced to the Arts and Corrections program at San Quentin. He started by doing woodwork and molding glass and plastic, he then expanded into new media such as block prints and advanced techniques using pointillism. It was this introduction to “The Arts” that the meaning of art changed for him.

Gary’s work has been included in many exhibitions including: Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, 2020, MoMa PS1, New York; Meet Us Quickly: Painting for us in Justice from Prison, 2020, Museum of the African Diaspora. Other venues include: University of Derby, England; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Art in Action Gallery, Flagstaff; Cooper Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian, New York; Kala Art Institute, Berkeley; The Washington Post, Open Sky Gallery 2023, Sacramento Crocker Art Museum 2024.

I started making art in 1985, eight years into a prison sentence that I would serve until 2020—forty-five years in all. Before being incarcerated, I had played the harmonica and ridden a unicycle without falling off, which is itself a kind of art. But I had never considered turning to visual art until I saw other men in prison making it. I started out doing woodwork and molding glass and plastic. As I began liking and improving my craft—expanding into new media like block prints and advanced techniques like pointillism—the meaning of art changed for me. It transformed from a desire and a hobby into a need and a vocation. I wondered how different my circumstances might have been had I discovered this passion earlier in my life.

My art comes from a wellspring of visions that I do not fully control or understand. Sometimes I am inspired by pictures, in the news or in a book, or recent or historical events. Most of the time, however, an image flashes in my mind. I might be on a walk or in the middle of a conversation when this image arrives, and I know I must use it so it does not go away. Even my most political art begins with an image, not a message. “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” about police brutality, began with an image of a boy raising his hands; “Divas,” about the strength of women, began with an image of childbirth. In producing each image, I have a practice of studying reference points. In what contexts has that image appeared? How have other artists represented it? Then I choose a medium that fits the image. For example, if I see many objects vying for attention, I tend to make a collage to accommodate them.