No matter how much time has passed since their convictions, the stereotype for the currently or formerly incarcerated remains — that they’re forever tied to their lowest moment.

However, “Unfinished Sentences,” an exhibit created by Zoe MacDonald, a junior majoring in fine arts, which opened at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery inside Watt Hall on Wednesday, aims to combat these preconceived notions with images that inspire consideration, empathy and compassion.

Through her exhibit, which displays artistic reimaginings of both adult and childhood photos of incarcerated individuals, MacDonald aims to encourage onlookers to humanize these people.

“What bugs me a lot is hearing any sort of negative rhetoric that’s so generalized about people that are incarcerated, because people don’t think about it like you’re talking about someone’s son or someone’s daughter,” MacDonald said. “Everyone has come from somewhere; people that are incarcerated didn’t just appear there, they have lived lives beforehand. They’re human beings.”

The minimalist setting of Lindhurst Gallery is contrasted by MacDonald’s vibrant images. Through paintings of them as children with youthful innocence and adults with families and passions, audiences are made to confront the formerly incarcerated people MacDonald represents from a place of empathy.

“All of us were once a kid. Everyone has seen an old family photo and can relate to that feeling of nostalgia, understanding and curiosity that you have,” MacDonald said. “No one’s innately good or bad.”

Sprinkled in the middle of these images of one of America’s most scrutinized groups is “The Ripple Effect,” a poem from Mark Springer, a man who’s currently incarcerated. While MacDonald said she didn’t want to speak for Springer, she said she interpreted his message as one that highlights the vicious cycle of incarceration, but also inspires hope for the future.

“It is such a privilege that I get to be here, writing these people’s stories on the walls and almost performing this ritual in honor of these people, and the lives that I’m getting to represent,” MacDonald said.

Although her work is based on real photographs, stylistically, MacDonald takes a colorful approach to her paintings that her former teaching assistant, Sue Shu, said she found especially compelling.

“Her paintings always [stand on] this blurry line between memory and a photograph, which is what I appreciate,” Shu said. “Usually whenever people paint from photographs, it’s very obvious, but she kind of embraced that photographic quality to her painting, [and still] makes it seem like a memory … it always looks a little bit surreal.”

MacDonald said her decision to stray from hyperrealism was also in service of her goal to emphasize the humanity of these images and these people.

“I’m representing things that are not finite. All of these people are still alive and still living their lives. I wanted the work to not feel pristine and finished,” MacDonald said. “I didn’t want it to feel like it was a perfect, hyper-real thing that couldn’t be touched. I wanted everything to feel very human.”

During her freshman year at the University of Michigan, she was also a part of a prison creative arts program where she had the opportunity to curate exhibitions of incarcerated artists’ work.

Rebecca Wyman, a junior majoring in business administration who was in attendance at the exhibit opening and considers MacDonald her “best friend,” said that she’s constantly witnessed the arduousness of the work her friend does.

“She’s been painting and painting for the longest time. Any time she’s free, she’s in the studio painting, and she’s such a perfectionist,” Wyman said. “She’s the most talented person I’ve ever met.”

MacDonald’s two-hour exhibit opening had many visitors, including her parents, who flew from New York, and her friends. Another visitor, one that she hadn’t previously known, was a standout moment.

J. Lee, one of the formerly incarcerated people she depicted, was shown holding a baby girl, who, unbeknownst to MacDonald, was Lee’s younger sister Julie, who passed away a month after the initial archival photo was taken. The intensity of the moment brought both Lee and MacDonald to tears.

“He was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe [it], Julie? This is the first time I’ve seen my baby sister in 30 years,’” MacDonald said. “I’ve never had someone be moved to tears by anything I’ve ever done, and also to have that human moment happen genuinely by accident.”

“Unfinished Sentences” will run at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery until Feb. 4.