Artist Mark Loughney Discusses Creating Art from Prison, and His Exhibition of “Pyrrhic Defeat,” Showcasing His Portraits of Fellow Inmates in Pennsylvania State Prison

Send us Fan MailMark Loughney’s art has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (“MoMa PS-1”), and published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic.  His black-and-white ink drawings evoke a mix of M.C. Escher and Salvadore Dali, with surreal landscapes and bizarre figures.  But Loughney is also well known for his series of prison portraits.  They’re prison portraits, not only because they depict prisoners, but also because they were drawn when Loughney himself was serving a 10-year sentence as an inmate at Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution – Dallas.  That is where Loughney’s portraiture blossomed, and his exhibitions began.