Halim Flowers
HALIM FLOWERS
HALIM FLOWERS
At the age of sixteen, Flowers was wrongly tried and convicted under the accomplice liability doctrine of felony murder and sentenced to 40 years to life imprisonment. In 2016, DC legislators proposed a bill that would release those who had been convicted of an act committed as a minor after serving 20 years, but excluded those convicted in the 80s and 90s. After hearing about this new bill, Halim immediately began reaching out to council members, the mayor, and social media for anyone to hear his story.
After spending twenty-two years behind bars he was released in 2019. During his time in prison, Flowers sought to find peace in a place of hopelessness, which is when he turned to literature and art. Today, Flowers’ artwork serves as a visual platform to raise awareness and inspire social justice. Flowers’ mission is simple: to be an advocate for love, which he spreads through his visual art, poetry, literature and criminal justice consultancy. His experiences as a child inside of the DC Department of Corrections was filmed in the Emmy award winning documentary “Thug Life In DC,” and his freedom was documented in Kim Kardashian West’s documentary, “The Justice Project”.
He is best known for his acrylic paintings on canvas that are defined by his use of raw and expressive brushstrokes synonymous with that of Jean Michel Basquiat. The self-taught artist embodies the freeness found in street art, but never feels confined by that or any specific style for that matter. By combining words and images on canvas Flowers’ work is thought provoking, sometimes forcing the viewer to come to their own conclusions about what these associations mean. Halim intertwines intellect and culture with colors and imagery to produce vibrant works that speak on what is currently happening in society while also giving a glimpse into his story and how his experiences influences his art. The underlying theme throughout his body of work is how interconnected humans are despite race, religion and other superficial boundaries. In Flowers' own words, “Love is the Antibody”.
In 2020, Flowers’ TEDx Talk, “Criminal Justice Reform”, and perhaps his most notable and critically respectable exhibition was his inclusion in a show at MOMA PS1 in Queens, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration”. Flowers received the Halcyon Arts Lab and Echoing Green fellowship awards, performed with Kanye West at his Sunday Service, spoke at various universities and conferences about the arts and entrepreneurship, and was awarded the Eaton DC Hotel Artist-In-Residency. Halim Flowers continues to work in the Washington, D.C. area creating artwork that advances his mission to promote love among all humans in the midst of chaos and adversity.
