Sherrill Roland was born in Asheville, NC, received both his BFA in Design and MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Sherrill is an interdisciplinary artist and the founder of The Jumpsuit Project. His Socially Engaged Art project has been presented at Open Engagement, Oakland City Hall and the Michigan School of Law. Recent exhibitions include CAM Houston, LACE: Los Angeles and Studio Museum of Harlem. He was recently awarded the Center for Documentary Studies 2018-19 Post-MFA Fellowship in the Documentary Arts at Duke University in Durham, NC.
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I create art that challenges ideas around controversial social and political constructs, and
generate a safe space to process, question, and share. The Jumpsuit Project is a socially engaged art
project being conducted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro during the 2016 - 2017
academic year. The primary purpose of the project is to raise awareness around issues related to
incarceration. This work grows out of my personal history. In August 2012, I was issued a warrant in
Washington DC explaining that I had four felony counts against me pending indictment. After nine
months an indictment was never found and the felony charges were dropped to misdemeanors. In
October 2013, I went to trial and lost, and 10 months later I was released from state prison. Almost a
year and a half after being released, I was exonerated of all charges and granted my bill of innocence.
For more than three years, I was forced to relinquish control of my life - which is why The Jumpsuit Project is particularly personal to me. Returning to life outside of the prison walls, with my innocence restored was challenging. I encountered difficulties reentering society, like many incarcerated citizens. Attempts to repress and ignore the imprisonment experience, while common, were altogether unsuccessful and unproductive. I found liberation in sharing my story with family and friends, and discovered that others found a similar release when sharing their experiences in return. And thus, The Jumpsuit Project was born.
In an effort to ignite the conversation around issues related to incarceration, I wore an orange jumpsuit everyday up to and during my graduation ceremony this past May of 2017. Introducing an orange jumpsuit, an outlier in an otherwise familiar setting, challenges those who encounter it by encouraging them to address their own prejudices towards those incarcerated. This visual representation of incarceration shed light on these issues and how those closely connected are affected.