ARTISTS TALKING

Nestled away in the south Gloucestershire countryside lies Leyhill Arts and Gardens, a unique new art space housed curiously on the site of HM Prison Leyhill. Showing here, ‘Marked Men’ grew out of a book project developed by Amanda Wait during a residency at HMP Preston. Working alongside male inmates she examined the issue of prisoners’ tattoos, exploring ways in which their bodies are branded through self-adornment or self-harm – a means of belonging or of self-identification. Through her documentation, Wait has revealed a fascinating insight into the world of prisoners’ tattoos and attitudes towards them. Each tattoo has a story attached and it is these stories that ‘Marked Men’ sought to tell.

On show was a selection of images from the book along with extracts from the text in which prisoners candidly discussed their tattoos. Some were homemade efforts, others were lavish professional creations; many were actually produced by practitioners working on the inside with crudely constructed tattooing machines (a number of these confiscated devices were also on display). These brief glimpses into criminal lives often revealed more sensitive sides to their personalities with certain tattoos having highly charged emotional significance. The close-cropped photographs presented only the tattoos themselves, the bearers remaining anonymous, which was interesting considering that the work focussed largely on the role of tattooing in relation to identity. The work revealed that many inmates were proud of their adornments, considering them as body art to be displayed; others were ashamed and embarrassed at adolescent scrawls or names of ex-lovers. For some, tattoos played an important role in retaining their identity in a depersonalising context; as one prisoner remarked: “It’s the one thing they can’t take off you in reception.”

Although the work was highly engaging this compact exhibition seemed to serve primarily as a promotional tool for the book and it was disappointing there weren’t more of Wait’s images on display.

The exhibition also includes images and performances from Marcus Moore and the Everyman Theatre, and tattoo banners produced at Wormwood Scrubs, through Priart funded by the Koestler Trust. Leyhill Arts and Gardens are also exhibiting confiscated tattooing machines from all UK Prisons, curated by Eleanor Cooke.