Portraits After Torture

("A Friend of Mine Was Arrested," watercolor and pencil on paper, 2006)

When photographs taken by Army guards stationed to the Abu Ghraib prison surfaced in April of 2004, they drew outrage from all corners of the world. Who can forget the hooded man standing on a box with electrical wires clamped to his hands? Or Private Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a naked man, collapsed on the floor?

We’ve since learned more about the Bush administration’s torture doctrine and extraordinary rendition programs, but we don’t know what’s become of the people questioned under those programs. For the next month, the McIninch Art Gallery at Southern New Hampshire University presents "Visage: Portraits by Chris Bartlett and Daniel Heyman." Bartlett, a fashion photographer, and Heyman, a painter and printmaker, have created portraits of former detainees from Abu Ghraib and other places of interrogation.

The show opens tonight with a panel discussion on justice for torture survivors led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit which represents a number of former detainees. Artist Daniel Heyman joins us to talk about meeting and painting survivors of torture.

View more images:
My Shoulders Were Dislocated, watercolor and pencil on paper, 2006
When I Saw My Sons Dead, watercolor and pencil on paper, 2006
When I Was Arrested My Hands, watercolor and pencil on paper, 2006