Contemporary visual artist and lecturer Marieke Kruger describes her involvement at correctional facilities as a path that was meant to be followed. Her journey of hosting art sessions and guiding convicts’ talents towards careers in art, both inside and outside of prisons, continues to connect different worlds.
Marieke Kruger views the creative process as sacred and feels most at home when she is alone with her work, and listening to classical and soundtrack music. PHOTO: Jean-Marie Uys
Once a week a group of around 15 convicts at correctional centres in Paarl, Franschhoek and Wellington gather to create art. They sit silently side by side as they practise their talents. Their art is guided by Marieke Kruger, contemporary visual artist and lecturer.
“Art is a way of placing a mirror in front of them on a metaphorical level. It is a very confrontational thing, but also very therapeutic,” says Kruger.
‘A tool of self-recognition’
Kruger launched the non-profit organisation (NPO) Outsiders Insiders Prison Art Projects (O.I.P.A.) in 2015 at the Drakenstein Correctional Centre, in collaboration with Bertie Fourie, head of sports and recreation at the facility at the time.
The aim of the project is to help prisoners (insiders) and ex-prisoners (outsiders) towards identity transformation and rehabilitation through drawing and printmaking, according to Kruger.
“Art is a form of therapy and can be used as a tool of self-recognition. It helps [the prisoners] to create new, positive identities. It helps them to deal with emotional things which they would not have been able to deal with otherwise,” says Kruger.
She describes her involvement as art instructor at the Drakenstein, Allandale and until recently Hawequa Correctional Centres, as an unconscious decision and as something that was channelled through her.
“I believe that we all end up where we’re supposed to be. The path that you are supposed to walk will naturally approach you. It is only a question of walking in it,” Kruger says, sitting in front of two empty easels in her classroom at the Jack Meyer Art Centre in Paarl.
She also teaches once a week at the Stellenbosch Academy of Design and Photography in Technopark, Stellenbosch and hosts workshops for outsiders at the Breytenbach centre in Wellington.
Insiders at the Allandale Correctional Centre contributed to a prayer bag project for the Winnie Rust Foundation in March 2021 by making lino prints of protea flowers, says Marieke Kruger. The prints were transferred onto red and white fabric, which were used to make tote bag gifts for 330 teachers in Utrecht as Christmas presents. PHOTO: Supplied/Marieke Kruger.
Art opens doors to different lives
Kruger hopes to be able to spend more time developing the participants of O.I.P.A. and granting them more opportunities to publicly showcase their art.
“We took some of the insiders to openings of their exhibitions. They got dressed in civilian clothes – they didn’t have to go in their prison clothes – and then got exposed to their work. It was such an amazing experience for them. There were some that started crying in front of their work,” says Kruger.
According to Fourie, it is very important for Kruger to equip prisoners with “tools” they can utilise in real life upon their release in order to be self-sustainable.
“She really has a ‘development and care’ motto in life,” says Fourie.
Ex-prisoners from Drakenstein Correctional Centre, Joseph Buys and Neelan Naidoo, were the first to achieve solo exhibitions through the O.I.P.A. project with guidance from Kruger.
Showcasing insiders’ talent in art circles beyond prison walls, introduces them to a life outside of crime, according to Kruger. “If anything, Neelan and Joseph know that they can lead different lives,” says Kruger.
Grant Small created “Self portrait” in 2020 after he was released from Drakenstein Correctional Centre. He used drypoint etching techniques. PHOTO: Supplied/Marieke Kruger
From ‘fragmented’ to freedom
Naidoo was imprisoned in 2010 and sentenced for 10 years at Drakenstein Correctional Centre after being charged with murder. He was transferred from maximum to medium security in 2016. It was during this time that Naidoo joined Kruger’s art sessions.
“Prison is a very tough place, but art took me to a better space,” says Naidoo. “After I got the feel of the pencil and [creating], I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s unexplainable.”
After his release in 2020, Naidoo attended his first solo exhibition at the MOK gallery in Stellenbosch, titled Fragmented Self. He owes his success to Kruger for being alongside him through his art journey from the day they met, says Naidoo.
“She is like a big sister figure for me. [The exhibition] was the first time that I achieved something in my life,” says Naidoo.
Neelan Naidoo created a colour lino print self-portrait two years after he joined Marieke Kruger’s O.I.P.A. project at Drakenstein Correctional Centre in 2016. PHOTO: Supplied/Marieke Kruger
Old habits die hard
Through art, correctional centres – commonly seen as spaces of hardship – became “non-threatening space[s]” for participants, according to Kruger.
“It was an amazing way of bonding inside the prison[s] and I think we had some of our best times [there],” says Kruger.
However, it is with great frustration that Kruger speaks about the harsh realities the programme faces once the prisoners are released.
“[The outsiders] must realise that they cannot continue in their old ways, and they have to make a choice,” explains Kruger.
She notes how there is a need for solid commitment and support for all the outsiders and stresses the collective importance of talent, hard work and character to make it as an artist.
“I was actually on the point of burning myself out, because I found it terribly upsetting to see someone come so far and then slide back into old habits. I had to set boundaries because I had none,” says Kruger. “I was emotionally very involved in their stories.”
Art was always an option
Kruger’s personal journey with art started when she grew up on a farm in the Banhoek Valley. Her family used to cultivate fruit on the farm, Rainbow’s End, and switched over to vineyards as the years progressed.
“I really had a privileged childhood. It is the most beautiful place,” says Kruger. “If you grow up surrounded by beauty – I call it the sublime – it just affects you so deeply that it becomes your space of belonging and art flows out of it.”
Kruger recounts her limited options in career paths upon having to apply for tertiary studies. Neither maths nor languages were ever an option, but she considered studying drama as it was always a part of their family.
“We never had to turn on the television, the drama was on the voorstoep,” she recounts with a smile.
Kruger immediately knew she wanted to pursue a career in visual art upon her enrolment at the PJ Olivier Art Centre in Stellenbosch as a grade 10 student. She continued her studies and obtained two master’s degrees in visual art; the first from the University of Johannesburg in 1998 and the second from Stellenbosch University in 2014. She is currently in the process of applying for doctoral studies through UNISA.
“For me, working creatively becomes an incredibly intimate space, because you are busy with your own thoughts. It almost becomes a sacred space,” says Marieke Kruger. PHOTO: Jean-Marie Uys
Opening up to a shared humanity
Kruger’s learning continues through her relationships with the inmates participating in the O.I.P.A.project. Just as she teaches them, they teach her, Kruger explains. She reckons her involvement at the correctional facilities is nothing short of “meant to be”.
“I don’t think anything is coincidental. There are things that one has to learn, see or realise that transforms us as humans,” says Kruger.
It is also not a coincidence that Kruger and Buys’s paths crossed, she says. Kruger recognised parallels and instances of “mutual reflection” in their life stories even though they are “worlds apart”.
“It is a total double sided mirror. I’ve come a long way with [Buys] from 2015 up until around 2021,” says Kruger.
During that time, she faced some personal struggles. She got divorced in 2019, and her mother died a year later. In hindsight, she believes that the right path naturally finds its way to one’s feet.
She describes her involvement at the correctional facilities as part of the natural path for her. Even though Kruger and her students inside and outside the correctional system are worlds apart, art becomes a bridge – connecting different worlds and overlapping paths.
“I view art as a platform to bring people in touch with their own humanity and with our experiential sameness,” says Kruger.