"Om in Orange" Painting

My next showing is at Shifting Shore Lines Wallach Gallery Columbia University October 2024 - Jan 2025 It is a group exhibit showing my Hudson River art at Columbia University
Lenfest Center for the Arts New York Times’ art critic Roberta Smith praised Papa's most famous painting "15 Years To Life" exhibited at The Whitney Museum in the Mike Kelley Retrospective in 1994 as an "ode to art as a mystical, transgressive act that is both frightening and liberating, releasing uncontrollable emotions of all kinds." Papa is a political artist and his bio can be found at

Papa is the author of This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency, ( optioned 2018 to become a feature film) His first book 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom (2004), is a memoir about his experience with the criminal justice system.
Papa has been interviewed by a wide range of national print and broadcast media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, National Public Radio, “Democracy Now,” Court TV, “Extra,” C-Span, WPIX, RNN among others. His art has been exhibited widely from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to many cultural centers, and he has appeared on nationally syndicated talk shows such as CNN's Your Money, MSNBC Live withTamron Hall, “Charles Grodin,” “Geraldo Rivera,” and “Catherine Crier Live.” His website is . Papa is influenced by Leon Golub painter of darkness , Pablo Picasso, and the Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera.