Corey Devon Arthur (Currently Incarcerated)
Bio
My name is Corey Devon Arthur. I’m a prisoner incarcerated in the New York State Department of Corrections. Besides that I’m a writer and an artist. I’m also a restorative justice advocate, a feminist, a Quaker and an AVP facilitator. 29 years ago I couldn’t say that. When I was 19 years old, I participated in a robbery and killed a man. I am ashamed and sincerely sorry for what I did.Ever since the age of 13, the criminal justice system has made me do a lot of things. Never once did they make me face the people I hurt, atone for my crimes, or even say “I apologize.” In March 2023, I had a one -person exhibition at My Gallery NY in Brooklyn . The title of the exhibition was “She Told Me To Save The Flower” featuring artistic rendering of feminists who personally inspired me. It was a prisoner’s plea for the criminal justice system to introduce and utilize feminism for healing, as opposed to the patriarchal model of rehabilitation consisting of brutality, abuse of power and oppression. There are seven women in my life who healed me without breaking my bones and locking me in cages. They did it by introducing me to feminism. Since then my life has made a remarkable turn for the better. These women achieved in a few years what our current prison system could not do in over the quarter century I’ve been a prisoner. They created a space of radical acceptance that empowered me to be honest with my authentic self. They taught me to honestly engage with my emotions. Beginning to understand my emotions led me to understanding the feelings of the people I hurt and why it was important for me to apologize and make amends.In 2024, I created a collection of portraits of 7 Quakers. These paintings have been travelling between Quaker Meeting houses in New York State and Connecticut. I am currently the 2025 Mississippi Five Art Fellow and I work with Empowerment Avenue with their Visual Arts for Liberation Project.
Artist’s Statement
The world as it was shown to me has never been enough. This has always frustrated me. One day while I was in kindergarten, I picked up a broken, dirty, black crayon and began to redraw the world the way I saw and felt it in my heart.I chose the broken, dirty, black crayon, because it reminded me of how I saw myself. I chose it because it looked like me. It was the one that nobody wanted to use. Since then I have learned to use every conceivable tool that makes and holds a mark. Growing up in the hood, I never saw anything as trash. Broken things and other folks' garbage was my treasure. Later, upon incarceration, I found a way to sketch despite the scarcity of art supplies. I found my voice while locked in solitary confinement using a three-inch rubber pen and scraps of paper, if I was blessed.My influences were graffiti artists I saw in Brooklyn throwing up their pieces on the trains and walls. These are my folks, the bottom people. Down here we make our heroes. I was immediately drawn to the prospect of marking something that would show the world what beauty could come from a dirty broken black crayon. I remember the first time I wrote my name on the wall of the boys’ bathroom in kindergarten. I saw more of my authentic self in my five-year-old scrawl than I had ever seen of myself depicted anywhere on earth.Recently I created a collection of five paintings titled "Blood In Eye," inspired by the late Comrade George L. Jackson’s book Blood In My Eye. Since age 13, I evolved from a criminal, to an animalized prisoner, to a revolutionary, and now into a feminist. I noticed the ledge where they assassinated George. It stopped the movement. His legacy compelled me to take the evolutionary next step. As an artist, this was the ideal opportunity to use my talents to study our bloodline of resistance. I painted Lolita Lebron, Kathy Boudin, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur with blood in their eyes. I also put a red rose in their hair. The system said they were broken; I saw them as beautiful. They fought for me. Now it's my turn to keep it lit, and pay my respects to them. The world didn't give them enough respect. So I created a way to use my art to throw it up for my sheroes.