New Art Gallery Displays Work From Incarcerated Oklahoma Women

A new gallery is open for the month of June and all the artwork was created by incarcerated women in Oklahoma and California.

The program, created by the non-profit Poetic Justice, started as a creative writing class but is expanding to include art. Some of the artwork is on display at 101 East Archer, along with portraits of fifteen of the women.

"We started getting in all these different art projects just amazing things,” Ellen Stackable, Executive Director of Poetic Justice, Said.

Lisa Loftus took the portraits and collaborated with some of the women to capture the way they wanted to look.

"Before it was her turn and put mud all over the side of her face, and she had a cutout of a lotus flower and she taped it to her eye,” Loftus said.

For these women in prison, their booking photo is the last one taken of them, and this allows them to see themselves in a new way.

"I work with models and so often when people first see their image, they say oh I don't like it, I look like this, oh my makeup, my face,” Loftus said. “Every single one of these women when I showed them the camera after we would do a few frames, were ecstatic."

The gallery will be open for the entire month of June.