“I haven’t lived here, I’ve been here”

Visual works of James Anderson

James Anderson

[Image description: James, wearing sunglasses, stands while holding his granddaughter in a blue dress]

I haven’t lived here, I’ve been here. I’ve existed. Survived.

There’s only three or four guys who have been here longer than I have.

—James Anderson

James Anderson’s creative practice reconceives the relationship between the psychological and confinement. Incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison since 1979 for a crime he did not commit, the artist’s work presents both a plea for accompliceship as well as an offering of personal solidarity. His paintings turn the iconography of the prison industrial complex on its head, nurturing an innate connection to the universe’s expanse even under conditions of captivity. On a series of domino pendants, James etches a Palestinian flag and the scales of injustice, personalizing each with dates of birth and lucky numbers. In his own words: 

My incarceration impacts my paintings... my efforts to draw the viewers into my work are intensified and, as there is much that I am not in a position to actually do, I try to inspire the viewers to think a little deeper than they usually would, as there is much more to reality than most people would normally think or believe.

When we look at James’ paintings, we enter them. His landscapes are multidimensional and speculative, stretching through time. Suddenly, we find ourselves between the inside and the outside: a slippery place where traditions of Black surrealism, Afro-futurism, and militant struggle mingle in order to orient us towards a future journey that begins at departure. For James, a checkered floor, or a keyboard, often marks this path.

What are the sounds and sensations of freedom when time and isolation operate as weapons of the state? The paintings below offer a revolution of the psyche: a blending of interior and exterior worlds, and a declaration of art’s centrality to the project of abolition. James reminds us, as Robin D. G. Kelley writes, of that “feeling of being able to see every single plane of life as it’s lived, and that those planes are both Surreal, the dream-state, and the landscape of the other side of the Earth.”  

The artist has been on death row for 35 out of the 42 years of his incarceration. You can learn more about his story here, and send him letters here: 

James P. Anderson

P.O. Box C-11400 . 4EB51

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin CA 94974

USA

—ATM

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Guarneri

[Image description: Instruments are overlaid across a starlit background. Most prominently we see a white violin and bow. There is a flute, a xylophone, a harp, a trumpet, and a swirling keyboard, as well as two drumsticks. A small, single eye looks out at them in the upper left third.]

Visions

[Image description: Against a starlit background, a wine-shaped frame encases the image of a shadowy figure looking outside, standing by an open door on a black-and-white checked floor. They stare out towards a keyboard staircase that climbs into the sky and beyond the frame.]

Untitled

[Image description: Grey brick surrounds an image of a starlit night and a city, painted in muted colors, crossed by a bright rainbow with a sun, and a keyboard path. Above, the earth on the left and the moon on the right. On the right, a single eye peers through a keyhole in the grey brick.]

Untitled

[Image description: A detail from the above picture, a black eye peers out through a keyhole in a grey brick wall. A night sky is visible in the corner.]

Dimensions

[Image description: The silhouette of a bare head is cut out against a blue night sky. In the silhouette are black-and-white and grey-and-black checkered patterns, with a drawn silhouette making its way across them as if across a floor. Beyond these patterns is an open door, against grey brick, leading to the night sky.]

Untitled

[Image description: We are looking into a box with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern. Overlaid are three circles, each depicting a similar scene: A black silhouette, standing in a room with the same checkerboard floor and grey brick wall, looking out through a doorless frame into the night sky.]

Axxception

[Image description: Grey brick surrounds an image of a starlit night and a cityscape, painted in muted colors. The brick forms a frame in the shape of a guitar. ]

Almost

[Image description: As if peering through a circle, we see a black silhouette standing on a grey-and-white checkered platform, with the dark abyss on either side, and the sun on the end of the platform at the horizon.]

[Image description: Etched dominoes, from left to right: Palestinian Flag; Funk; Scales of Injustice; Amnesty International; New World, Old World]

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