Artist Mr. Wash Launches Book Fundraiser for Community Center in Compton

When artist Fulton Leroy Washington, who is better known as Mr. Wash, was released from prison in 2016 after President Barack Obama commuted his life sentence, he quickly realized just how much of a need there was for organizations providing services to recently incarcerated individuals readjusting to life outside prison. In the past decade since his release, he has also come to see that the youth of his community in Compton, California, also need a space to learn art-making. But more importantly both groups need a place where “help and guidance” can be offered, he said in a recent interview. Related Articles Wifredo Lam, One of Surrealism's Most Misunderstood Artists, Comes into Focus at MoMA MoMA PS1 to Celebrate Its 50th Anniversary in 2026 with Sprawling 'Greater New York' Show Enter the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, a forthcoming 13,000-square-foot campus in Compton. “By going through that experience, I realized just how much programs and spaces were needed, so I decided to dedicate this time in my life and the resources that I could generate in order to build a bridge to help the people in the community,” he told ARTnews. The center, he said, “gives me an opportunity to change the status quo, to help build the community.” Mr. Wash was first arrested in 1996 and convicted in 1997, ultimately serving 21 years in prison for three nonviolent drug offenses that he didn’t commit. He entered prison without knowing how to paint but picked it up quickly, drawing on his knowledge of construction and engineering work as well as his memories of making papier-mâché in his youth. He ended up teaching art in the prison system for 18 years, eventually rotating between three prisons. “The opportunities that [inmates] had in prison were very limited until we created these art programs, but there was no instruction to how to use the things they learned in prison on the outside. It was more of a pacifier in the prison, just to give you something to do,” he said. In the years after his release, Mr. Wash also faced a great amount of rejection from the art world as he tried to show his art. “The average person would not go through what I went through,” he said. It wasn’t until he met fellow LA artist Tala Madani, who introduced him to dealer Jeffrey Deitch that he was able to see a path for himself in the art world. That eventually led him to participate in the 2020 edition of the Made in L.A. biennial, where he was one of its breakout stars and he won the exhibition’s $25,000 Public Recognition Award. Other artist supporters include Patrisse Cullors and Devin Reynolds, who both gave Mr. Wash studio space. In creating Art By Wash, Mr. Wash said he hopes to create a space not only where people can learn how to make art and have studio space and access to materials to do so, but also to exhibit their work. “There’s a lot of raw talent coming out of these prisons,” he said, and by mounting exhibitions for these fledging artists, Mr. Wash hopes to connect them with the museum curators and galleries that he has connections with as a way to “help build up their careers.” Mr. Wash acquired the land for the space around two and a half years ago, with about half that time being spent on demolition and meeting the required city regulations to obtain a certificate of occupancy for the space. (The project is being designed by Morphosis Architects and The NOW Institute, who are working on it pro bono.) Mr. Wash felt it was essential to site his forthcoming center in Compton, as it’s a city with a dearth of community-based art spaces and especially art supply stores. “You alleviate the need for a child to have to ask their parents to go to another city to get a canvas,” he said by way of example. The biggest hurdle for the completion of Art By Wash is having the funds to realize the center, which is currently scheduled for 2028. That is dependent on achieving the fundraising goal of $100,000 for the first of five planned phases of the project. In addition to seeking out private funding and using sales from his artwork, Mr. Wash has launched a community fundraiser in the form of a book, titled Artists in Space, which features his studio visits with 20 artists, including Mario Ayala, Patrisse Cullors, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., Devin Reynolds, Gabriela Ruiz, Peter Shire, and Tala Madani. The book is available for pre-order as of November 12 and will be shipped in February 2026. It is priced in two tiers: $55 for general support and $100 for seed support, which will come with a signed copy and an invitation to an event hosted by Mr. Wash in 2026. (If the book sells out, the fundraiser will raise more than the needed $100,000.) The studio visits in Artists in Space are structured around Mr. Wash’s own experience of making and teaching art in the prison system. He described that environment as “very limited in what it allowed, so coming home and getting the opportunity to visit other artists and seeing the conditions that they were working, it opened my eyes. It opened my eyes to blessings that I had in prison and what I was deprived of being in prison.” Some of his questions revolve around materials, like what brushes a painter used to make a work as during his incarceration Mr. Wash’s access to brushes was extremely limited. He also asked the artists about what they “like most about their studios, what they disliked about them, and what they wish they had.” Those responses have informed what the studio spaces at the center will look like, he said, noting that in the design process of the building he has ensured that there are 10-foot-tall doors and 20-foot-high ceilings so that artists can get large-scale work into the studios and that they could maximize the wall space. He added, “I wanted to make sure that the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center had everything that an artist needs.”