The True Artist Breaks Out of Jail is a provocative collaboration between Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri and renowned artist Rosemary Clunie. Pushing the possibilities of text and image to their limit, this book addresses questions of life in our times through the potent energies of poetry and painting. It journeys into the human spirit and its yearning for truth and authenticity as it examines key contemporary subjects ranging from war and climate change to the wounds and wonders of the human psyche.
Exploring the modern world through a joint creative output, Okri and Clunie strive to inspire a richer relationship to art and to democratize the art experience—marrying the mystery of image with the accessibility of language. Combining autobiographical elements with fragments of fiction, Okri and Clunie appeal to the two ancient aspects of brain and spirit in all of us. The result is a thoughtful and powerful interpretation of our world by two important voices in our current discourse.
Contributors
Ben Okri
Author
Ben Okri is a Booker Prize-winning novelist, as well as an acclaimed essayist, poet, and playwright. His books have been translated into twenty-eight languages and he has won numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and the Chianti Ruffi no-Antico Fattore.
Rosemary Clunie
Author
Rosemary Clunie is a painter, printmaker, video artist, illustrator, and children’s book writer. She has exhibited widely since 1991, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2022 British Art Fair, and 2024 Venice Biennale, and her paintings are held in eminent private and public collections.
Ossian Ward
Foreword By
Ossian Ward is director of content at the Lisson Gallery and an established writer on contemporary art. Previously chief art critic at Time Out London, he has contributed to major art magazines and newspapers, edited ArtReview and V&A Magazine, worked at The Art Newspaper, and published acclaimed books such as Look Again: How to Experience the Old Masters.
