In prison, painting is freedom
- Text by HUCK HQ
- Photography by Jordi Ruiz Cirera
The instant you hear Chris Wilson’s voice, you know this is a man worn and weathered by hard experience.
Drugs and dabbling in petty crime in the Mission and Tenderloin were his rights of passage. He landed in prison at 16 after being caught in a stolen car.
He was born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, he lived in Ghana and Tanzania until he was 10, when his family move to California. Then things fell apart: his parents split, his dad had a mental breakdown and Chris was left to fend for himself.
With a junkie’s rap sheet filled with multiple counts of resisting arrest, overdosing, possession, conspiracy and burglary, Chris did four stints in California’s infamous San Quentin prison before being deported to England in 1998.
Prison, he found, is a place where creativity flourishes in many ways. “I wasn’t part of any bullshit gang, I wasn’t Aryan Brotherhood or anything like that,” he remembers, as he paints in his Brixton studio. “I was freer, I could walk my own walk.”
Some invent gangs to survive, some create art. Chris, for instance, learned from other inmates how to make paint tints from crushing material that were on hand, like Skittles.
Now on the outside, he supports himself as a writer and a painter. He demonstrates for Huck how he creates a create a palette of colours and fashions paintbrushes by cutting his own hair and attaching it to broken cutlery.
“Creation is a place of freedom,” he says.
Subscribe to Huck’s YouTube channel to make sure you never miss another short film.
Latest on Huck

Meet the trans-led hairdressers providing London with gender-affirming trims
Open Out — Since being founded in 2011, the Hoxton salon has become a crucial space the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Hannah Bentley caught up with co-founder Greygory Vass to hear about its growth, breaking down barbering binaries, and the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Written by: Hannah Bentley

Gazan amputees secure Para-Cycling World Championships qualification
Gaza Sunbirds — Alaa al-Dali and Mohamed Asfour earned Palestine’s first-ever top-20 finish at the Para-Cycling World Cup in Belgium over the weekend.
Written by: Isaac Muk

New documentary revisits the radical history of UK free rave culture
Free Party: A Folk History — Directed by Aaron Trinder, it features first-hand stories from key crews including DiY, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Circus Warp, with public streaming available from May 30.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Rahim Fortune’s dreamlike vision of the Black American South
Reflections — In the Texas native’s debut solo show, he weaves familial history and documentary photography to challenge the region’s visual tropes.
Written by: Miss Rosen

Why Katy Perry’s space flight was one giant flop for mankind
Galactic girlbossing — In a widely-panned, 11-minute trip to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, the ‘Women’s World’ singer joined an all-female space crew in an expensive vanity advert for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Newsletter columnist Emma Garland explains its apocalypse indicating signs.
Written by: Emma Garland

Katie Goh: “I want people to engage with the politics of oranges”
Foreign Fruit — In her new book, the Edinburgh-based writer traces her personal history through the citrus fruit’s global spread, from a village in China to Californian groves. Angela Hui caught up with her to find out more.
Written by: Katie Goh