For years, Suave Gonzalez has been telling his story through TED talks and the Pulitzer-winning podcast Suave, but lately he’s focused on showing what he experienced through an art exhibit.
Gonzalez made his first artwork at 19 using coffee grounds and markers in solitary confinement at Graterford Prison, just two years into his (now-commuted) life sentence for murder. After 31 years, Gonzalez was resentenced and released in 2017, thanks to a Supreme Court decision that found mandatory life sentences without parole unconstitutional for minors. In that time, he learned how to read — at 17, he couldn’t write his own name — and went on to earn his GED and graduate with a bachelor’s from Villanova. And he never stopped creating art, despite the risks and limitations.
“We Are All Doing Time,” on view at Morton Contemporary through March 29, showcases the breadth of his work, from a painting of his mother’s hands to a mixed-media collage with notebook wire, Timbaland shoelaces, and paint chips from prison walls. He used court documents, mental health evaluations, and other paperwork related to his incarceration as canvases while also incorporating items he took from the prison, like a guard’s uniform, to criticize the prison industrial complex. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is also a frequent subject as Gonzalez was inspired by her commitment to justice.
The show’s message spotlights the wide-ranging impacts of the carceral system, not just on Gonzalez’s life but on the lives of five other artists: Keith Andrews and Jennifer Rhodes, who are both serving life sentences; formerly incarcerated artists Eddie Ramirez and Mark Loughney; and Roxsana Diaz, whose ex-fiancée served five years before they broke up.
Gonzalez sees the exhibit, presented in partnership with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, as an opportunity to educate the public about real experiences of incarceration. He recognizes it’s not like the usual work displayed at commercial galleries.
“This is not the type of art that you want to have in your living room. It can be, depending on who you are, but it’s not the typical type of art — it’s not decorative,” said Gonzalez, who now works as a student success coach at Community College of Philadelphia. “This is art that either pisses you off, to react, or make you think, like ‘Am I really doing the right thing?’ My thing is to provoke and get people mad with it.”
That anger, Gonzalez hopes, will lead to change individually and collectively. Soon his work will see larger audiences as one of his pieces will be loaned to the Smithsonian for a forthcoming exhibit on mass incarceration.
“We Are All Doing Time,” Morton Contemporary, 115 S. 13th St., Phila., 215-735-2800 or mortoncontemporary.com
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