Inji Aflatoun

"Some two or three months after I arrived in prison [in 1959], I felt a desire to paint and with it came a refusal to surrender to the status quo…I would go up to the roof of the building to paint anything I could find, eventually painting the inmates."

"One of the most important subjects I painted from inside the prison was Inshirah, who had been sentenced to death, but her execution had been postponed for one year until her child was weaned. Those sentenced to be executed were placed in a cell under special guard so they wouldn’t commit suicide, and they wore red uniforms. While awaiting Inshirah’s execution, I felt the massive tragedy of her story, as she had killed and stolen under the pressure of extremely harsh conditions and overwhelming misery. When I asked to paint her, the director [of the prison] told me that it would be very depressing. I did indeed paint her and her son - this was one of the paintings that were confiscated by the Criminal Investigations Department."

"There was a small tributary of the Nile where sailboats would pass by. We would watch from inside the prison as the sails caught the wind and men climbed up the masts to tie them down. Seeing the wind in the sails stirred many sorrows in me, and sparked an uncontrollable desire for freedom.. I obtained permission from the General Manager to go up to the roof of the warehouse..[and] when the boats appeared [the other inmates] cried out ‘The boats are here!’ I painted many pictures of sailboats, depicting our immobility against the movement of the sails."

"After some time I lost the desire to paint the prison and its inmates — the whole place disgusted me. I began to paint what nature there was behind bars, as we did have some gardens, trees and flowers. I was fascinated by a tree that was near the barbed wire - I’d paint it in every season, and such meticulous attention to a single object taught me a lot. If I’d be outside the prison I never would have painted just that one tree. My fellow inmates even named the tree after me; they called it ‘Inji’s tree."