MoCA CT to open three exhibitions on art and incarceration

The Museum of Contemporary Art Connecticut will present Inside/Outside from Dec. 5, 2026, to March 14, 2027, with three exhibitions focused on incarceration, identity and memory. The show includes work by Jesse Krimes, the CPA Prison Arts Annual Show and Veronica May Clark’s prison-made abstractions.

Why it matters: - Inside/Outside puts prison-made and prison-informed art in front of the public in Westport, Connecticut. - The exhibitions center memory, identity and connection in a setting that often strips people of agency. - MoCA\CT is using the show and related programs to bridge the divide between incarcerated artists and broader audiences. - The lineup includes work by currently incarcerated artists, formerly incarcerated artists and artists shaped by lived experience inside prison.

What happened: - The Museum of Contemporary Art \ Connecticut will present Inside/Outside from Dec. 5, 2026, to March 14, 2027. - The project brings together three exhibitions: Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts, the CPA Prison Arts Annual Show and Veronica May Clark: Singing Inside a Glass of Water. - An opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 5, from 4-6 p.m. at MoCA\CT. - Exhibition images are available through the museum.

The details: - Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts presents selections from Krimes’ ongoing series that began in 2020. - The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia organized the traveling exhibition. - Kelly Shindler and Hilde Nelson curated the Krimes exhibition. - Krimes turns donated clothing and textiles from currently and formerly incarcerated people into patterned quilts. - The quilts draw on the American tradition of quilt-making and use animal figures selected by participants to represent themselves. - The work functions as a record of loss, resilience, estrangement and reintegration. - Krimes titles the quilts after U.S. prisons to underscore the scale of mass incarceration. - In one quilt, Marion, an empty chair and boots stand in for an absent sitter who remembers meditating in the woods behind his home. - Krimes served a six-year federal prison sentence after earning a BA in studio art from Millersville University. - During incarceration, Krimes made large-scale art using prison-issued soap, bedsheets, hair gel, markers and contraband pencils. - Krimes also organized arts programs and co-founded multiracial creative collectives while incarcerated. - After prison, Krimes founded the Center for Art and Advocacy and serves as its executive director. - The Center for Art and Advocacy runs a national fellowship for formerly incarcerated artists. - Krimes led a class-action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase over fees imposed on formerly incarcerated people. - Art and Krimes by Krimes, an Emmy Award-winning documentary directed by Alysa Nahmias in 2021, examines flaws in the criminal justice system. - Krimes has shown work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, the Palais de Tokyo and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. - His work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. - The CPA Prison Arts Annual Show includes more than 700 works by more than 150 artists currently incarcerated in Connecticut prisons. - The annual show also includes an audio and video installation with work by 8-12 formerly incarcerated artists. - Guest curator Jeffrey Greene has spent more than 35 years helping people in Connecticut prisons through art. - CPA launched its Prison Arts Program in 1978. - The program is one of the longest-running prison arts initiatives in the United States. - Greene has served as program manager since 1991 and works each year with more than 400 incarcerated artists and more than 50 returning alumni artists. - Veronica May Clark is serving a 75-year sentence. - Clark has moved from text-based drawings on notebook paper to hand-woven abstractions. - Clark deconstructs fashion magazines and paper bags to create works with layered, painterly depth. - The exhibition frames Clark’s work as a record of persistence and identity. - Greene also curated Clark’s exhibition. - Greene previously curated How Art Changed the Prison at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. - Greene has helped place artwork from Connecticut prisons in Harper’s Magazine and The Washington Post Sunday Magazine. - Greene also lectures on prison arts and has developed projects with formerly homeless communities and youth. - Greene is an active musician with projects that earned a BBC “Peel Session.” - Greene holds a BA in Studio Arts from Hamilton College and received the 2020 Vision Award for Arts & Education from the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford.

Between the lines: - The show is not only about incarceration as subject matter. It also treats art-making as a tool for community, memory and self-definition. - Krimes’ quilts and Clark’s abstractions both turn restricted materials into forms of testimony. - CPA’s long-running program shows that prison arts in Connecticut is not a one-off exhibit. It is a sustained pipeline for creative expression and public visibility. - The exhibition design broadens the audience beyond the prison system by pairing visual art with audio and video installation.

What's next: - MoCA\CT will run public programming alongside the exhibitions. - Visitors can see the full project beginning Dec. 5, 2026, through March 14, 2027. - The museum is positioning Inside/Outside as both an exhibition and a civic conversation about incarceration, empathy and healing.

The bottom line: - Inside/Outside uses three exhibitions to show how art can preserve dignity and identity inside a system built on confinement.