Incarceration, 2012, by Leon Aarts, acrylics on board (for sale)

Final Verdict: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

A pressing, prismatic prison—"Incarceration" is Leon Aarts' Basquiat behind bars, his Picasso in lockdown, interlocking urban faces into a vibrant vise of confinement with unyielding stride. Less declarative than I AM, less epic than End of the Road, but tighter in its trap—art as rattle on the cage. For activists, architects of the mind, or anyone who's felt the grid close in, it's a resonant restraint; this isn't faces incarcerated—it's the incarceration staring back.

"He locked the faces in a grid of blue and red, lines like bars, eyes like keys. The sky outside? Just another wall."