Murals Toward the Walk to Freedom

These pieces were painted by Renaldo Hudson between 2018 and 2020 while imprisoned at Danville Correctional Center. While the stairs were originally birthed out of a therapeutic exercise. For Hudson, the work transformed the space into a center for meditation for the wing. Hudson recalls people sitting in the space gazing at the paintings across the stairs and door. 

The murals in the hospital were Hudson's efforts to create beauty in what was a horrible hospital, as he expresses that the hospital was even worse than the already dark and dreadful segregation unit. Note Hudson's use of water, sunlight, and movement. He speaks to carving out his freedom from inside prison, and his usage of water—a moving force, and the sun—a sign of life, signify his continuing hope and determination to be free. Hudson hoped the murals would serve as comfort for those who had to live and die in that space.