When you come to prison your world shrinks
By James Latunji-Cockbill, Prisons and Health Producer
Ikon’s Art in Prisons programme operates the only curated gallery inside a prison in the UK: the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Studio at HMP Grendon, an all-male psychotherapeutic prison in Buckinghamshire. Hosting a varied exhibition programme of exhibitions, the space provides a unique opportunity for long-term prisoners to access contemporary art.
In Summer 2026, Ikon exhibited new work created by Artist in Residence Simon J. Harris in dialogue with the prison community at HMP Grendon. Principally a painter, Harris has developed an ambitious body of work, including photography, film and works on canvas, over a period of two years (2024-6).
The Weight of a Cloud (2026) is significant as one of the largest oil paintings, measuring 11 x 6 ft, produced inside a prison. The work meditates on the painterly sublime through its depiction of the prison’s perimeter fence and outbuildings surrounded by a bucolic landscape and dynamic sky.
The heavy surveillance and enclosure of the prison grounds is set against the expansiveness of the sky, expressing an arresting tension between confinement and freedom. The work was directly influenced by prisoners’ experiences of incarceration, as ‘S’, a former prisoner on D wing, explains:
For me there was a physical disconnect with anything beyond the prison fences and razor wire. It’s rare to have a view from any prison window or exercise yard where I’ve been able to bridge that disconnection. Even if you see beyond, it’s more often than not interrupted by concrete, fencing and prison buildings which immediately define your vision.
I watched Simon lay down idea after idea of how he wanted to interrupt the landscape as seen from the art studio. His study of the sky, our conversations about clouds, depth in the landscape and the hues of all of them, slowly bridged those barriers I was so used to seeing. Before I made any real observations of what was taking place, I too began to see a landscape beyond.
Unknown #15: The Two Mirror Equation (2025) is an equally ambitious screen print on canvas, 134 x 94 cm, also made onsite in the prison art studio. It depicts the artist taking a medium format ‘selfie’, his image reflected in a grid of prison-issue mirrors. The title of the work references a second mirror, that of the camera’s internal mechanism, and therefore plays with the idea of reflection, mediation and representation.
An 8mm film, Cloudbusting (2025), captures Harris’ attempt to generate rainbows with a jetwash, recalling the parlour trick of passing light through water vapour to demonstrate refraction. The effort appears futile and, when a rainbow briefly emerges, it is obscured by the visual markers of incarceration that frame the scene.
Harris’ exhibition has been a profound experience for the prisoner group, allowing a form of enquiry and reflection rarely seen in prisons. As the project’s Art Orderly, ‘Ri’, explains:
“I think when you come to prison your world shrinks. You’re always looking in, you don’t look out really, because your life’s inside. It’s only because of Simon I’ve done four or five paintings now of outside the prison, but I look past the fence and I appreciate that I had not seen that for years and Grendon’s given me that in a way.”
This blog includes quotes from The Weight of a Cloud, which is available to purchase from Ikon Shop.
The publication features images from the exhibition alongside reflections and texts developed through the residency.
