Artist Talk: Russell Craig and Eileen Jeng Lynch, The Bronx Museum

On the occasion of his inaugural solo exhibition in Wellington, Florida, Russell Craig: Redemption, artist Russell Craig joined The Bronx Museum Director of Curatorial Programs Eileen Jeng Lynch for an intimate artist talk exploring the ideas, materials, and lived experiences that shape his practice. Held on February 2nd, the conversation brought audiences into dialogue with Craig’s evolving body of work and the personal histories embedded within it. Craig’s work transforms materials associated with prison life—ground coffee, ramen noodle pulp, leather, playing cards, and woven commissary wrappers—into monumental paintings and textured surfaces that confront the architecture and psychology of incarceration. Moving between abstraction and portraiture, the works in Russell Craig: Redemption reconstruct the emotional landscape of confinement while foregrounding dignity, resilience, and human connection. The exhibition reimagines the gallery as a passage through carceral space, where sealed and partially opened Prison Door paintings reveal intimate portraits of formerly incarcerated individuals and stories of collective survival.