YOUNGWOOD, PA - Beginning November 16, the Westmoreland County Community College Art Gallery will host “Resurrection,” an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Pittsburgh artist Daniel Bolick of death row inmates whose convictions were overturned.
Bolick partnered with The Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people, to meet and then depict the individuals whose lives were destroyed by missteps in the criminal justice system.
A 2007 Associated Artists of Pittsburgh recipient of The Westmoreland Exhibition Award, Bolick said the 10 men depicted in the paintings and drawings in the exhibition have served a total of 164 years in prison – 71 of those years on death row – for crimes they did not commit.
“When innocent men are released from death row or long-term incarceration, they emerge as broken human beings,” Bolick said.
Bolick said that the wrongfully convicted, unlike guilty offenders, are not eligible for services such as education, counseling and job training to help them re-enter society.
“I hope that this exhibition will raise awareness about the failings of our criminal justice system,” Bolick said. “Wrongful convictions are not isolated, rare events. Innocent people languishing in prison or worse – being put to death for crimes they did not commit – should be intolerable to everyone.”
Bolick will share his experience with the Innocence Project during a panel discussion, “Art and Justice,” an interdisciplinary dialogue with WCCC faculty Dr. Patricia Guth, professor of psychology; Dr. Tom Soltis, assistant professor of sociology; and a member of the college’s criminal justice faculty Thursday, November 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Founders Hall amphitheater. The program will include a presentation of Bolick’s work and the role of art as an agent of change as well commentary by the panelists and a question and answer session.
Immediately following the panel discussion, an artist reception will be held in the Art Gallery in Science Hall from 3 to 5 p.m.
The reception and the panel discussion are free and open to the public.
WCCC Art Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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