Grantee Cohort Spring 2020
Location Raleigh, NC
Sherrill Roland is a multidisciplinary artist whose “The Jumpsuit Project” intended to raise awareness around issues related to mass incarceration and grew out of Sherrill’s personal history. He spent ten months in state prison on a wrongful conviction just as he had started his last year of graduate school in 2013. Based on new evidence, Roland was exonerated of all charges in 2015. He toured “The Jumpsuit Project” nationally as a performance piece and through speaking engagements at institutions ranging from LACE: Los Angeles and the Studio Museum in Harlem to Princeton and the University of Michigan Law School.
Sherrill earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in design and Master of Fine Arts in studio art from UNC–Greensboro.
Sherrill will realize his vision for “What Does a Moment Cost?”, a public art project, with his Art for Justice grant. His plans include a large-scale installation on the Art Students League’s (ASL) façade, a series of “performances” of his acclaimed “The Jumpsuit Project,” portraiture workshops in partnership with ASL and a prospective partnership with Carnegie Hall.
