Morton Contemporary presents We Are All Doing Time

Art for reform

Two of the artists, Keith Andrews and Jennifer Rhodes are currently serving life sentences. In an essay accompanying her work in the show, Rhodes highlights how long incarcerations affect not just those serving time, but their families as well. She cites a statistic that a large majority of children with an incarcerated mother end up themselves incarcerated and notes that all three of her children have been incarcerated.

Another of the artists, Eddie Ramirez, sees the show as an opportunity to educate as well as to potentially bring about reform. “I’m hoping to engage people in a conversation about criminal justice,” he explained. “Too many acknowledge it in a superficial way, so I wanted to invite a new audience, who might not be having this conversation—family members of victims, other artists—along with the politicians and the media.”

Ramirez’s work is vibrant, with a graffiti-like feel and many of his paintings include images from his native Puerto Rico. “I was a graffiti writer as a kid, but I never considered myself an artist then,” he said.

Painting in mauve

Up until November 2023, Ramirez was 28 years into a sentence for a crime he did not commit. While incarcerated, he participated in Mural Arts programs. “That was our source for painting supplies, the leftover paint from Mural Arts projects,” he recalled. “If it was just mauve, you painted in mauve.”

Ramirez was aided in his quest for exoneration by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. A non-profit organization that provides legal aid to the wrongly convicted, they’re the co-sponsor of the show and will receive donations from a portion of the sale of the artwork.

“We also provide re-entry services,” noted Nilam Sanghvi, the legal director for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. “Exoneration is wonderful, but it’s difficult to come home and re-integrate. So some years into doing this work, we saw the need for that support.”

Another artist in the show, Suave Gonzalez began creating his mixed-media work while in solitary confinement in Graterford Prison at the age of 19. “Art was something I turned to, to stay away from the day-to-day prison stuff.” He also earned a degree from the Villanova University Program at SCI-Graterford (now SCI-Phoenix).

Like Ramirez, Gonzalez recalls using any materials possible: plastic spoons or toothbrushes instead of paint brushes, and gluing collages together with toothpaste. Some of his work incorporates the vestiges of his 31 years in prison, like his state-issued work boots, I.D. card, and various paperwork generated by the legal system.

After the commuting of his life sentence to time served in 2017, Gonzalez worked as a student success coach at Community College of Philadelphia. His podcast Suave that he produced with Maria Hinojosa for Futuro Media won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022.

After the exhibit closes, one or two of Gonzalez’s artworks will be headed to the Smithsonian Institution. They’ll be on loan for a special exhibition on mass incarceration in conjunction with the induction of Philadelphia artist Lily Yeh’s papers from her Graterford Art Project into the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

“I grew up in North Philadelphia near the Village of Arts and Humanities that Lily founded,” Gonzalez explained. “After I was incarcerated, I wrote to her and invited her to come to Graterford and do workshops.” That was the start of a project that yielded art shows, plays, and youth mentorships centered around the belief that art can heal and help a person find their humanity, even those who have been locked away and seemingly given up on.

“I want people to know that anything is possible,” said Suave Gonzalez.

Featured image: 'Life without Parole' by Jennifer Rhodes. (Image courtesy of Morton Contemporary.)

Image description: Illustration. Two fish are linked by a chain, another chain trails off one's tail. Blue, white watery strokes the backdrop.