Rejon Taylor has spent more than half his life behind bars. At only 23 years old, he was sentenced to death for an unintended homicide he committed as an 18-year-old adolescent—a stage when all human brains are still developing (and will continue to until about 25). Now, as a 39-year-old, Rejon still lives in solitary confinement on death row.

 

To live alone and imprisoned is an almost unimaginable reality. Compound this with the very real struggles of temporal lobe epilepsy and PTSD from which Rejon suffers and the result seems unfathomable.

 

Despite these challenges, Rejon has utilized his time on death row as an opportunity for personal growth and betterment, namely through his creation of visual art and poetry. Through crafting over 300 pieces of art during his time in prison, Rejon showcases his astounding creativity and continued desire for connection. This website shares a small fraction of his accomplishments with the world.

 

Rejon's work is vibrant and vivacious, illustrating the joy for life he has managed to retain even in bleak circumstances. His varying and unique sources of medium brilliantly and intrinsically reflect Rejon's sense of self and enduring hardships as he tenderly shapes papier-mâché faces by hand or pulls on stucco from the prison wall.

 

Ultimately, his love of art and words stems from the “noble purpose they serve: self-expression.” For Rejon, art is the vehicle for creativity, imagination, regret, redemption, and love. To create art is to create connective tissue between a solitary cell and the outside world, allowing Rejon to share his deeply human emotions with others—who, as fellow humans, undoubtedly crave the same expression and connection with life around them.