PHILADELPHIA – A powerful exhibit inside a Center City art gallery aims to change the way people think about mass incarceration.
Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, a former juvenile lifer and Pulitzer prize winner is the lead on the exhibit creating paintings made with contraband he took from Graterford when he was released.
What we know:
Luis “Suave” Gonzalez was a juvenile lifer at 17 years old.
He had been incarcerated for 30 years and sentenced to life without parole until a life-saving ruling by the Supreme Court that said those sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.
He was released in 2017.
He learned to read in prison and discovered his talent and love for painting.
What they’re saying:
Luis “Suave” Gonzalez says art is healing , can transform lives and serve as conversation about what he calls the crisis of mass incarceration.
“Why we should be more compassionate. That is what people can expect when they come to this exhibit,” he said.
The exhibit addresses topics like the prison economy, wrongful conviction, women’s issues in prison and the effect of prison on families.
“This is the real deal how people survive in prison,” said Gonzalez. It is more than paint.
“I was just taking a bunch of contraband. I put it in a box,” he said about the stuff he took with him when was released and Graterford Prison was on the brink of closing.
“What you’re looking at here is my interpretation of the underground economy inside the prison system, which is the cell phones, the phone chargers, the cigarettes, tattoo guns,” he pointed out. The makeshift tattoo gun still works. It is made from a battery-operated toothbrush and wire.
Other pieces focus on the Department of Corrections.
“You see a guard shirt, commissary list and these items that you see here are the number one items that commissary makes millions across the globe selling these things,” he said. Another painting he made from paint he chipped from the walls of the prison.
“This symbolizes solitary confinement. I spent seven years in solitary confinement,” he recalled. He finishes each painting with words about the 51,000 state prisoners housed.
“I started cutting words from magazines and using them to tell my story,” he said. His story is that of a juvenile lifer at 17 years old, incarcerated for 30 years until a life-saving Supreme Court ruling.
The exhibit also honors lives lost, filling in a silhouette of late Supreme Court Justice ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“I love her because she was part of the decision that brought me home so I said you know what? She stands for justice. What happened to these gentlemen was an injustice. A lot of them, all of them passed away in the prison system because they could not pay five dollars to see the medical,” he said.
“People do mistakes and people do change,” said Gonzalez.
What’s next:
This weekend at Morton Contemporary Art Gallery, Gonzalez will be there to meet people during the event and after a ceremony. The exhibit runs though the end of the month. The gallery is located at 115 S. 13th Street in Center City Philadelphia.
The Source: The information in this story is from Luis “Suave” Gonzalez.
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