Camilo Cruz

 I am an employee of the largest criminal justice system in America and I am also a formally-educated artist. I create portraits that seek to uncover the metaphysical, spiritual, and psychological resonance of the people and phenomenon of criminal justice bureaucracy. I enlist real judges, inmates, police, lawyers, bureaucrats, and litigants (not actors) in tableaux that I orchestrate in an environment never intended for "art." With official permission, the real epicenters of justice such as jails, courthouses, and administrative offices transform into my studio where I reconstruct the traditional figurations of the system into portraiture of the human self.

Paradoxically, I am now an employee of the same system my father battled during his days as a radical lawyer. But while he was driven as an 'outsider' fighting the blatant injustices of law, I am an 'insider' of a banal, yet absurd, bureaucracy and my spirit is subject to repression. My work is created after 9-to-5 business hours when most people are gone. During these hours, the buildings transform into spaces of silence but this silence is loud, forged by the human resonance that is stifled by the systemic codes of government. Although restrained during normal working hours, the emotions, the power, the impact and spirit of human trajectory remain and scream-out for attention after people have left the building.