Beautiful artwork from San Quentin death row, made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny dots

"Spirit Crows" - by Keith Loker

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"Keith Loker was sentenced to death in 1995 and is incarcerated on death row San Quentin. He is a talented artist, and he talks here about the painstaking process of "ink-stippling",which he uses in his art work to create beautiful pieces with great detail.

"Ink-stippling by hand is an art medium of precise dotting.  As I sit hour after hour laying down individual dots it can induce a tediousness that I must be mindful of because in this process I cannot make a mistake since there is not a way to repair a missed placement of a single dot.

Each piece can take weeks into two months to complete due to the rest I must give mi fingers and wrist because this technique requires small precise movements from dot to dot which means I can only work each day for a certain amount of hours"

Tribute to Johannes Vermeer - The Milkmaid
ink-stippling, by Keith Loker

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"What drew me to this style of artwork was how defined I could stipple a scene to completion giving the visual feeling of being a photograph. And photo-realism is what I am aiming to achieve in a sense to reconnect to the imaginatins and dreams I had in mi teens.  And other pieces attempt to touch into mi thoughts and experiences of mi adult years as I mature and endure struggles inside here".

"As I sit hour after hour laying down individual dots it can induce a tediousness that I must be mindful of because in this process I cannot make a mistake".

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Briefly, in closing...., I think that one reason I gravitated to this medium is the thoughtful control I must have with each step which can be contrasted to mi out of control and impulsive mind I was "functioning" in. I have had to learn to remind myself how to be thoughtful in mi art and in these years of life."

Ink-Stippling art pieces by Keith Loker

Keith Loker - Artist statement

"What you see here are mi attempts at artistically assembling some of mi own ideas and creations, and some images from photos of things and persons I find a connection to.

​These completed scenes have been a way to physically finish something using mi hands, mind and time while locked in this 4 x 8 x 10 cell closet.  I have no formal training in art and so each project becomes another learning curve.

​I don't yet feel like I am at a high enough level of producing to call myself an artist.  Yet, mi goal is to keep increasing the visual quality of the scenes i'm drawn to work on so hopefully and eventually mi creations will reflect the things and places I love and once was able to be a part of in a way that separates mi works from any other persons producing similar subjects". - Keith Loker, San Quentin death row

See more of Keith's work here