Gary Tyler: Rebirth

Gary Tyler is a fiber artist and activist whose quilted and appliquéd works explore his experiences as an inmate in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola, for a crime he was falsely convicted as a teenager, and where he remained — with time served on death row — for over four decades. After a decade of fear and depression, he turned to quilt-making and theater as a respite from his situation, as a form of self-expression, and as a way to uplift his fellow inmates.

His quilt-making practice supported the Angola Prison Hospice program, a radical program that cares for dying inmates. His Angola Prison drama program provided a sense of community and fellowship among inmates, and provided those who entered into the system without literacy the chance to learn to read and write. His artistic practice provided structure, expectations, and responsibility, and facilitated a creative outlet to process the trauma incurred by incarceration.

“Doing textile work gives me an opportunity to be able to utilize fabric in a most creative way that I never thought really existed. It’s something that I feel that’s empowering. It tends to really manifest who I am as an individual.” –Gary Tyler

Tyler was convicted on October 7, 1974, in the shooting death of thirteen-year-old white boy, and wounding of another, during a day of violent protests by white mobs against Black students at Destrehan High School in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Tyler was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder at age seventeen by an all-white jury. He received a mandatory death sentence and became the youngest person on death row in the United States. His imprisonment sparked outrage from activists and supporters, including Rosa Parks, who formed a movement to advocate for his release. He was not released until 2016, after forty-years of incarceration. 

Tyler continues to create textile art in his studio in Los Angeles, California. His message is one of hope and renewal through art, as well as a cry for justice. 

This exhibition is part of three of solo presentations at GRAM that showcase how creativity gives us a sense of purpose, cultivates resiliency, and reminds us of our shared humanity. It centers on the art of three artists whose practices demonstrate the value of creativity informed by experiences of the justice system.