Donald “C-Note” Hooker’s Coffee Bar isn’t your typical coffee-themed artwork. This captivating piece, showcased in the Everything Coffee prisoner art exhibition curated by Treacy Ziegler of Prisoner Express, took center stage in 2018.
The exhibition itself took place in two locations throughout 2018: Gimme Coffee’s Cayuga Street location in Ithaca, New York, and their Trumansburg coffeehouse.
While Everything Coffee showcased a diverse range of prisoner-created paintings and poetry, a unique element of the exhibition was the restriction placed on the visual artists. Curators sought works that transcended traditional coffee imagery, instead encouraging artists to utilize coffee itself as their primary medium.
Coffee Bar exemplifies this challenge brilliantly. C-Note, a renowned prisoner-artist, masterfully crafted an ice cream bar using instant coffee as the base. Watercolor accents provided subtle highlights and lowlights, while a final layer of floor wax gave the piece a polished finish. The woman depicted in the artwork is a particularly intriguing element, formed entirely from wax.
This unconventional use of coffee grounds and artistic materials elevates Coffee Bar from a mere depiction of an ice cream bar to a thought-provoking exploration of artistic expression within limitations.
Own a piece of art that sparks conversation
Bring the captivating Coffee Bar by American prison artist C-Note into your home. This unconventional and thought-provoking art print is sure to be a statement piece – click on the image below 👇
