Painted with My Hair is inspired by the paintings, poetry and letters of Donny Johnson, an exceptionally intelligent and talented US lifer, who has been locked away inside his country’s notoriously punitive prison system since the age of 18. At 58, Donny was released from solitary and had his first parole board hearing in April 2018. But for 24 years of his prison life, he was ‘buried alive’ in an 11-by-seven-foot concrete cell inside the Super Max Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay State Prison, where creativity and the making of art were crucial to Donny’s survival.
