January 26 – March 17, 2024

To See Inside: Art, Architecture, and Incarceration pairs large-scale paintings of prison interiors by Boulder-based artist Sarah McKenzie with a range of artworks and creative writing by twenty-four artists affiliated with the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative. Collectively they reflect on the places and spaces of the US prison system and its impact on the people confined within it.

In 2021, McKenzie launched an ongoing project, researching and photographing prison architecture; interviewing people about their experiences inside the US carceral system; and creating paintings of these institutional spaces that are largely hidden away from mainstream society. Her work led her to begin teaching with the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI), an extraordinary program led by Executive Director Dr. Ashley Hamilton, which has offered a range of arts-based in-person and correspondence programming for people incarcerated throughout Colorado since 2017. For this exhibition, McKenzie presents her paintings in conversation with artworks and creative writings by twenty-four formerly and currently incarcerated artists, all of whom she has met through her work with DU PAI.

The DU PAI artists are: Anonymous, Hector Castillo, Anthony Cole, Cayla Cushman, William Daniels, Shii Emde, Ryan Flint, JR Gilbertson, Victor Gonzales, Luther Hampson, Lynell Hill, Matthew LaBonte, Raul Luevano, Monique Lynch, Angelica Macias-Williams, Jose Mandujano, Sean Marshall, Joseph Taylor McGill, Justin Moore, Mario Rios, Shawna Hockaday, Mike Severson, Billy Scott, and Clinton Thomas.