Meet The Artist And His Art

Oppressionism

My work is part of an underground Oppressionist movement (art created under active oppression, often institutional confinement, and as a means of resistance). Due to oppressive restrictions, Oppressionist artists are often forced to utilize found, pilfered, or contraband materials to complete their works. Oppressionism combines stylistic inflences from street art, pop art, and urban grafiti writing, often set against realistic depictions of everyday confinement, with a thematic use of text to represent institutional bureaucracy.

With this series I hope to inspire a contextual shift within the movement, focusing on detailed depictions of battered yet otherwise mundane institutuional objects to convey the ultimate cost of confinement: the "object-ification" of the human being. The subject is often set amidst a violent and vibrant whirlwind of color and chaos to represent the emotional turmoil of the confined self.

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Bobby found solace in the world of art. Denied the luxury of professional tools and supplies, he ingeniously utilizes the meager resources available within the confines of his cell. With a keen eye and a steady hand, he transforms everyday images into extraordinary works of art. The limited funds he receives each month are barely enough to cover essential needs like hygiene, food, medicine, and phone calls, leaving no room for artistic pursuits, yet his creativity is an unwavering beacon in the darkness of his confinement.

In addition to being a visual artist, Bobby is also an award-winning and published writer.

Bobby is currently working on a collection that he’s titled How 2 Jail Vol.1, an Oppressionist Mixtape. There will be 12 pieces in this collection, one for each year behind bars, so stay tuned because he has 11 more pieces of art for this series coming soon. Here’s a short audio of Bobby talking about his art and upcoming collection.

Read What The Award Winning Author And Poet Justin R Monson Has To Say About Bobby’s ‘How 2 Jail’ Art Series

Justin Rovillos Monson is a Filipino-American poet & writer, was an inaugural PEN America Writing for Justice fellow and a recipient of the Kundiman / Asian American Literary Review / Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center A Lettre Mentorship in poetry. His work has appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, The Nation, and elsewhere.

How 2 Jail vol.1, Bobby’s innovative aesthetic mixtape succeeds, and pushes the boundaries of carceral expression in ways that I hesitate to believe a written text could ever achieve.

Echoing the use of mixtapes in hiphop to circumvent the traditional pathways manned by ever-present gatekeepers, the 12 “tracks”— one for each year of incarceration — were created using found, and often contraband materials. A prison-issued uniform reforms itself into a dozen canvases. Wall primer, officially used to paint over holes in drywall is converted into gesso. Stolen brushes, rigged light sources, hand-to-hand dealt paint — nothing is off limits. what is true in prison also holds true in How 2 Jail: The fine line between thriving and surviving can only be crossed by ingenuity and instinct. Bobby blurs this line and creates a new style to define it. He calls it Oppressionism.

Surprisingly, How 2 Jail's conceptual approach, what sets the aesthetic mixtape apart from other works is not the artistic framework, but the sense of place one gains access to upon viewing the works. Just as the Lascaux cave paintings help us to consider life before recorded history, and as the Sistine Chapel gives us glimpses into the Christianity of the Renaissance, How 2 Jail opens a doorway into an existence where freedom is scarce but still possible.

I still believe the weight of incarceration cannot be truly understood outside of lived experience. That said, there are images that might help us all understand what it means to carry that load, Bobby and his use of Oppressionism might have the keys to set us free.

How 2 Jail Vol. 1: Oppressionist Mixtape

Since coming to prison I've existed in a near perpetual need of canvas. I've spread paint across everything from cardboard to pillowcases. Most recently I’ve set to turning my prison-issued shirt into a series of smaller canvases. From this act of desperation came a groundbreaking collection of visceral images, 12 in total (one for each year of incarceration), meant to represent my time behind bars.

This collection, titled How 2 Jail vol.1 is presented as a first-of-its-kind aesthetic mixtape, with the individual paintings serving as the tracks within the larger theme of a full-length album. The back of each track comes with liner notes featuring Track Number, Title, and Proof of Provenience in the form of various institutional documents.

**1st Painting In The Series - Oppressionist Mixtape**

2nd Painting In The Series - Asian Inmate

Bobby incorporates institutional items within each piece of art, and this one is using part of his PSI (Pre Sentencing Investigation) as part of the background.