Curator and exhibiting artist Carolyn Harper's relationship with featured artist Shane Daly began in early 2021, when she started writing to incarcerated women through the organization Sista2Sista. At the time, Harper did not know Daly was transgender, and initially addressed her letters under that assumption. After several months of monthly postcards, Daly wrote back, formally introducing himself and explaining that he is trans. A friendship developed through correspondence over the following year, and by 2022 the two had progressed to video visits, bonding over a shared love of art and the creative process.

As Daly began sharing the paintings he was working on, he and Harper talked at length about technique, composition, and color. Harper was immediately struck by his command of paint and his innate drawing ability — noting that while most self-taught artists carry a certain naivety in their work, Daly's does not. His paintings are intuitive, spontaneous, and deeply expressive, yet remarkably masterful in their ability to capture faces and expressions, all the more striking given that Daly is entirely self-taught and has never taken a formal art class.

The more Harper saw of Daly's work, the more she wanted to bring it beyond the prison walls. His ability to convey feeling through paint is extraordinary, tapping into emotions that resonate universally. Through art, Daly has found a path to freedom within his cell — a testament, in Harper's view, to art's power as a constant across time, space, and circumstance. She sees in his work a reflection of his unique humanity, and evidence of triumph in spite of the brutality of his circumstances.