Introduction
On November 13, 2014, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Who Decides, Inc. launched its very first visual art project titled: "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides", the Art Event on Capital Punishment. The exhibition was free to the public and displayed a total of 50 pieces of (visual art) produced entirely by Arkansas' death row inmate Kenneth Reams and his wife -- Isabelle Reams from Montpelier, South France. The opening reception was attended by more than 80 guests from around the country. The art and accompanying narratives chronicled the history of the death penalty in America. The exhibition was informative, provocative and deeply moving -- according to the written reviews. Those initial exhibits are now touring and educating society about the death penalty. The artwork has been displayed in multiple galleries, libraries, churches, colleges, and museums throughout the U.S. and in Europe. Here, we have posted several of those exhibits -- along with a "growing number" of new artwork by another artist. This collection is just part of what the organization now hold in its reservoir...and continue to publicly display.
Art
Title: Sorrow of the Soul
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Medium: Acrylic painting on canvas
Year: 2018
*In remembrance of the victims.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper-
Artist: Kenneth Reams Year: 2000
*Recent statistics show that in America 1 out of every 4 individuals sentenced to death are innocent.
Title: U.S. Supreme Court
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Roger Lewis Coulter
Year: 2017
FOOTNOTE: Two days after creating this painting for WDI, Roger L. Coulter unexpectedly died on death row.
Title: $1.95
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2013
*In 1958, and all-white Marion, Alabama jury convicted and sentence James "Jimmy" Wilson to death for the crime of stealing $1.95 in a night burglary. This case would become the first American death penalty case to gain international attention.
Title: Superman
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2013
*In the 1930s, Action Comics printed its first edition of the comic book Superman. The first edition tells the story of how Superman saved an innocent woman from being executed and turned in the real murderer, beginning his long fight against injustice.
Title: Jesus
Medium: Graphic Art
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2012
*An innocent man - - accused, arrested, tried, convicted and executed
Title: Founder of Who Decides
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Patrick Chappatte
Year: 2015
*In June of 2015, International New York Times, editorial cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, visited our founder and created this (caricature image) of him. In 2016, the New York Times later ran a full cartoon spread about Kenneth's life story in their newspaper.
Title: Homicide Victims
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2013
*As of April 1, 2014, records show that there has been (2018 total victims) in capital cases since the reinstatement of the death penalty.
Title: Victims
Medium: Graphic Art
Artist: Isabelle " Ize" Reams
Year: 2012
*In remembrance of the victims.
Title: Lethal Injection
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2013
*In 1977, an Oklahoma medical examiner proposed that death row inmates be executed using (3) drugs administered in a specific sequence. The proposal was approved by the Oklahoma state legislature the same year and quickly adopted by other states. Five years later, in 1982, Texas became the first state to use the lethal cocktail.
Title: Publicly Banned
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artist: Jack Jones
Year: 2016
*On December 8th, 1890, the US Supreme Court ruled in Holden v Minnesota that states could ban public access to executions. That same year states begin enacting laws that placed executions behind enclosures in order to exclude public viewing.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2013
*Words often associated with Capital Punishment.
Title: Solitary Confinement
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Roger Coulter
Year: 2017
*Today in America, 3,000 plus condemned inmates sit on death row. The vast majority of these condemned inmates are locked away in solitary confinement where they languish for prolonged years under what has been described as cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.
Title: George Stinney, Jr.
Medium: Graphite pencil on acid-free paper
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2015
*George Stinney, Jr. was the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century. He was executed in the State of South Carolina on June 14, 1944, at the age of 14 years old.
Title: About Death Row
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kevin Cooper
Year: 2015
*The state of California reinstated the death penalty in 1978. Since then, 23 inmates have committed suicide and 13 inmates have been put to death by execution as of January 2015.
Title: Untitled
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artists: Jack Jones (executed)
Year: 2016
*The State of Connecticut has executed two men in 54 years, both men "volunteered" to be executed.
Title: Utah 1977
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2012
*Utah was the first state to resumed executions after capital punishment was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976. The state executed Gary Gilmore by firing squad on January 17th, 1977.
Title: Military Shame
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2012
*In December 1917, the US War Department approved of the "simultaneously hanging" of 13 African-American soldiers for their participation in the Houston Riot of 1917, that resulted in the death of 12 people. Years later, after deeper investigation, the military acknowledged that many of the convicted and executed soldiers have been wrongly accused.
Title: Death House
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2016
*The building or part of a prison in which prisoners condemned to death are kept in preparation for execution.
Title: Portrait of Kenneth Reams
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Josh Gabbatiss
Year: 2016
*Currently more than 30 states allow murder charges to be brought against "non-killers" under the legal doctrine known as (accomplice liability), Reams' death sentence is just one of about 80 such cases, were a "non-killer" was sentenced to death.
Title: Partick Fitzpatrick
Medium: Charcoal on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2012
*Michigan, became the first jurisdiction in the US to abolish the death penalty, it ended executions partly in response to 1828, hanging of Patrick Fitzpatrick. Two years after Fitzpatrick's execution, it was proven that he was innocent of the crime.
Title: Women in the Electric Chair
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2013
*New York state currently does not have the death penalty. However, doing the years that New York carried out executions, a total number of 9 women were executed in the states electric chair -- giving NY the distinction of executing the most women in the history of the electric chair.
Title: Religious Right Denied
Medium: Graphic art
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2016
*In 2013, the ACLU released a report stating that 62% of states that practice capital punishment offer no access to religious service to death row prisoners and access to spiritual advisors is often irregular.
Title: David Baldus
Medium: Color pencil on acid-free paper
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2015
*The Baldus Study found that in the State of Georgia defendants charged with killing "white victims" received the death penalty (11 times more often) than defendants charged with killing black victims.
Medium: Color pencils on acid-free paper
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2015
*In 2003, Governor George Ryan of Illinois (commuted) more than
160 death sentences to life sentences. This would become the
largest such "empty of death row" in U.S. history.
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2012
*On March 20th, 1899, Martha M. Place was the first woman
executed in the electric chair. She was executed in the state of New
other women (including one juvenile) have followed Martha's fate.
Title: Single Drug Injection
Medium: Charcoal on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2013
*On March 10th, 2011, Ohio became the first state to use them
controversial -- a single-drug method of lethal injection, when it
executed Johnnie Baston. The execution marked the country's first
ever use of pentobarbital as a "stand-alone execution drug".
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2015
*August 2011, after 18 years and 78 days in prison Damian Echols,
one of the "West Memphis Three", was released from death
row...after he entered an Alford plea.
Medium: Graphite pencil on acid-free paper
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2017
*Death Row Records was founded in 1991, by Dr. Dre and Marion
"Suge" Knight. The now-defunct label was once one of the most
lucrative record labels in the music industry and home to some of
raps biggest musicians...such as 2Pac.
Title: 5th Amendment
Medium: Charcoal on acid-free paper
Artist: Isabelle "Ize" Reams
Year: 2013
*This constitutional right serves as a protection against self-incrimination. However, a growing number of (death penalty cases)
have shown that this fundamental right is often time violated by
arresting officers -- leading the accused to make coerced and false
confessions to crimes they never committed.
Title: David "Dave" Keaton
Medium: Graphite pencil on acid-free paper
Artist: Kenneth Reams
Year: 2013
*In 1973, Keaton became the first man exonerated from Death Row
in the United States. He was sentenced to death in 1971, in the State
of Florida, by an all-white jury at the age of 18 years old.
Year: 2014
*Troy Anthony Davis was convicted of murder and executed on August 19, 1989, for the murder of a police officer Mark Mac Phail in Savannah, Georgia. Davis strongly proclaimed his (innocence) throughout his arrest, conviction, and during his execution.
Title: Hispanics on Death Row
Medium: Ink on acid-free paper
Artist: Minino Sniper
Year: 2016
*In 2013, 11% of the death row population was made up of
Hispanics. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment 78
Hispanic inmates have been executed in America. Majority of those
executions occurred in the South.
Title: Who
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artist: Roger Coulter
Year: 2017
*Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides
Title: Largest Mass Execution in U.S. HistoryMedium: Ink on acid-free paper
Year: 2012
*President Abraham Lincoln signed off on the execution of 38 Santee Sioux Indian men by hanging on December 26th, 1862, in Mankato Minnesota. It was the largest mass execution in US history.
Title: William Kemmler
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Artist: Roger Lewis Coulter
Year: 2016
*On August 6, 1890, William Kemmler was executed in the State of New York. His execution was historic, it marked the “first usage” of the Electric Chair in America.
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