Our Artist Bios

WAYNE ALEXANDER

Born in Jocassee, South Carolina, Wayne Alexander is a 69 year old painter previously incarcerated at Perry Correctional Institute in Pelzer, South Carolina. Prior to his prior and post-incarceration, Mr. Alexander enjoyed hunting, fishing, and deer hunting with his camera. His love of nature has inspired his painting for many years. He has two children, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Alexander paints “…from memories of places I’ve been.” He has been inspired by artists from the Hudson River School, landscape painters whose aesthetic visions were influenced by Romanticism. He is self-taught by books, television, and trial and error. Alexander’s motivation to paint stems from his love of the outdoors; he uses his life experiences to “escape” from prison. “Prison brought out a talent within me that I never knew existed,” he claims.

Alexander works in acrylics, using 30-year-guaranteed canvas, hand-painting by brush. All works are originals, his style is defined as realism with a touch of Impressionist. His greatest reward come when he gives a painting to someone and receives a positive response. “Those responses are worth more than any price I could put on my work,” says Alexander. His personal challenge to himself is to merely improve as an artist.

Alexander’s early influences include Van Buren, Thomas Cole (founder of the Hudson river School), and Asher Brown Durand, whose art work helped define the Hudson River School. Alexander claims to spend numerous hours in though prior to his brush ever touching the canvas.

His accolades include: several Character-Based Rehabilitation Unit (“CBU”) teaching certificates for his Art instruction classes, Perry Correctional Talent Show, and his work has been on display at St. George Creek Orthodox Church in Greenville, South Carolina.

Alexander asserts himself to help others learn the craft of painting. His work can be seen at www. PerryCBU.com, or at Perry Correctional facility. His work is on sale at www.imperial-imprint.com. Alexander can be reached via this website.

KOBE CARTER aka ½

Kobe T. Carter, who goes by the name “Half” was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1978. He was raised by his mother and father and grew up with his younger sister and older brother. Coming from a struggling family and an abusive father, Kobe found an escape through drawing. Since the first grade Kobe has always been infatuated with all kinds of art work. Though out his school years he was known as the class clown and one of the best artist in school, winning every art contest that came his way.

At age 14, Kobe took the wrong path in the street, of money and drugs. Even when Kobe was going down the wrong path, he never quit doing his art work. In 1998-2003 created artwork via computer graphics on CD overs, flyer and cloth. In 2003 the streets had caught up with him and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for trafficking drugs.

Kobe has been in prison for over 10 years and he has not let the struggle stop what he loves to do best, and that is using his artistic talent. Kobe grew as one of the most talented artist in prison. He is inspired by other artist’s pencil drawing, real life painting and urban art. His style of art is more real like and extremely detailed. Detailing and shading is where most of his talents lie. 

Kobe has never attended an art school. He said “It’s a God given talent and I am blessed to have such a wonderful gift.” Kobe drew his first portrait at the age of 9, of he and his brother. And in 1992 he drew a portrait of himself on his bedroom closet door. To date he has drawn over hundreds of portraits and paintings for his family and so many other people.

Kobe has been spreading his talent around to other inmates in the prison by teaching them how to draw. He has been teaching art classes for over 4 ½ years and has inspired others like him that they can do whatever they put their minds to. Kobe says that teaching people who couldn’t even draw a straight like to ultimately draw a portrait is something he could never dream of doing even though he’s behind bars. Kobe puts 100% love and work into every piece of art he does because he wants to be a well- known and respected artist in the art world. In addition, he wants his consumer to have the very best.

Kobe is now doing big things behind bars with Imperial Imprint LLC and with CEO Dawn Simmons who is located in New York City. Kobe has beautiful artwork in the world and continues to beautify the world with new art work every day.

Michael Moore

The Artist was born August of 1973 in New York, explores the realms of fantasy and opens the door to allow the rest of us a glimpse as well. An avid RPG payer, the nationally award winning artist credits the works of artist such as Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, Todd Lockwood, Larry Elmore as well as the pin up style of Bettie Page as photographed by Bunny Yeager as his early influences. Powerful Warrior Queens, Seductive Sirens and Flirtatious Pixies reach beyond their frames and lure the viewer into their worlds. Using a mixture of colored pencil, watercolor and acrylic paints the artist gives the viewer a front row seat into the depths of his mind.

Currently serving a life sentence for Murder in the South Carolina Department of corrections, he strives to give back by inspiring others as he leads them down the rabbit hole into strange and magical worlds inhabited by fantastical and mythical creatures where nothing is impossible and reality is limited only by your imagination. Producing pieces under his personal logo “Dreams of Morpheus”, the artist and his work can be found through his distributor, Imperial Imprint LLC.

Andre Cannon

Andre Cannon was born in Greenwood, SC on June 25, 1975. From the age of 10 hwe was raised in Greenville, South Carolina. He graduated from Greenville high school in 1994 and attended Greenville Tech for Visual Arts for one year. As a child, growing up, Andre only created pencil drawings. During his high school years Andre began making bad choices in life which lead to criminal acitivy. Andre is currently serving a 22 year sentence for a number of charges that fell from what was supposed to be a simple drug deal that went bad. Andre has been incarcerated since July 2004, which is his second prison term. Andre accepted his prison time as an opportunity to learn how to improve himself. He accepted Christ in his life and began focusing on positive things. While serving his sentence, he crossed paths with an inmate named henry Fuller a.k.a. Sanyika Astari, an old classmate which is an outstanding artist as well. Henry began painting in prison, and three years later began teaching Andre. From that point on, doors of opportunities began opening for them.

After learning techniques of identifying colors and shadowing with colors, Andre began creating his own style of painting. His favorite style is exaggeration of colors with realistic portraits drawing attention to the eye beholder. Some