A look inside Britain’s only art gallery in jail

The centrepiece of the exhibition at Britain’s only contemporary art gallery in a prison is an installation, consisting of two broken, stained armchairs. They’ve been placed face-to-face, as if for a therapy session. Elsewhere there are silkscreen prints and paintings. This outbuilding-cum-art studio and gallery is where prisoners are also taught dry-point etching – surprising given the needles involved, but I am assured that all potential weapons are accounted for at the end of each session.

‘For two hours a week I come here and learn new skills,’ explains the silkscreen artist and inmate of HMP Grendon. ‘I get completely absorbed in printmaking. I feel freer here than any other time in prison. I’ve recaptured my childhood love for art.’

His one regret about what he calls Grendon’s art project is that there are no opportunities for life drawing in the flesh. ‘We don’t have access to the internet here, so we rely on life-drawing DVDs. That’s how you educate yourself about structure and body position. But when you think about it, there are lots of men here who’ve spent a lot of time in the gym building their bodies, so it feels like a missed opportunity not to be able to draw them.’

As he talks, I imagine that the resultant drawings would command tidy sums if this contemporary art gallery had a gift shop. But of course as Grendon is a category B prison, there is no gift shop and entry to the exhibition is more restrictive than the most exclusive private view. On the plus side, admission is much cheaper than a trip to the Royal Academy.

HMP Grendon was founded in 1962 as a therapeutic prison. To be transferred to Grendon, prisoners have to admit their crimes and be approved not just by the governor but also their peers.