I was in Botswana this week and most of the countries newspaper covered the escape of 3 death-row inmates, this made me think of prison and how inmates are capable of designing incredible tools while behind bars and also able to find their way out of tight security. Others develop ways of boiling water using the light bulb connection, some invent new of charging cellphone batteries and then, there are those who make motorised pens which are used to cut into the flesh of fellow inmates. Several years ago, a my ex-convict friend tolled me that in South African prisons, nails and makeshift blades, are rubbed into the wounds with a mixture of melted black rubber seals, ground red brick, trash bins, batteries, and saliva to ink tattoos, I wonder if they've started making motorised ink pens these days.
The saying; necessity is the mother of all inventions, has never rung more true than in pirsons around the world.
Famed Louisiana-born tattoo artist Scott Campbell created a series of realistic ink wash paintings on paper depicting novel and improvised tools. Campbell built these DIY contraptions as part of a project to administer tattoos to inmates inside Mexico City prisons and document prison tattoo culture.
The series of watercolors capture the essence of the unique machines. The use of black ink with a definitively applied brush technique is unforgiving and requires focus as strokes can’t be changed or erased once painted.
Campbell unveiled the realistic paintings at a recent solo exhibition at OHWOW in Los Angeles titled “Things Get Better.” Scroll down and see the impressive series of makeshift ink guns:
