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| | | Food dye as paint, hair as a brush: how a lifer found an escape in art | | by Duncan Campbell Oct 3, 2021 | | A London exhibition of works created in prison by murderer Donny Johnson coincides with a new film about him His paintbrush is made from his own hair. His paints are the coloured pigments from M&M sweets. His canvas is the back of a used greetings card and his studio is a cell that measures seven feet by 11 feet. This is the world of Donny Johnson, sentenced to life in California in 1980 for a murder committed during an argument over drugs when he was a teenager. If you were to pitch his story as a film, you might suggest it was the Birdman of Alcatraz meets A Sense of Freedom but there is no need for such a pitch as a film, Painted With My Hair, has been made and will premiere later this month to coincide with an exhibition of his paintings in London at the Riverside Studios. Donny Johnson was five when his violent ex-con father subjected his mother, Helen Grimes, to a savage night-long beating. “He was a carefree little child until then,” recalled Grimes on a visit to London to see the film. “But after this happened he got hostile, he would break things. The beating was something that went on for nine or 10 hours – we had neighbours on both sides but nobody called the police. I got away at six in the morning and called the police but when they came he [her ex-husband] was gone.” Continue reading... | | | | | |
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