On a low whitewashed outbuilding in the grounds of HMP Grendon, close to double rows of tall barbed-wire fences, an image of Elvis as a cowboy with the orange-mulleted head of David Bowie cuts a surreal figure. The image announces a new studio-cum-art gallery at Europe’s only fully therapeutic prison, where 260 inmates – 70% of them lifers – spend five days a week in therapy facing their crimes. “We’re the only prison in the country that has no segregation unit but has an art gallery,” says Grendon’s head of clinical services, Richard Shuker.
The Bowie/Elvis work is part of a show titled Imposter Syndrome by the artist Dean Kelland, the fruit of a nearly five-year residency organised by Ikon Gallery in Birmingham at the category B all-male prison, located in the Buckinghamshire countryside. A group of us have passed through those massive chain mesh fences, beyond security gates and a sniffer dog to visit Kelland’s show alongside a presentation of the inmates’ artworks. Despite all these precautions, there’s a celebratory mood as inmates, prison staff and guards pack in, chatting and admiring the works.
