Wrongfully convicted at age 17 for a crime he didn’t commit, Gary Tyler used his time in prison to learn the art of quilting, graduating from a graphic arts program while on death row at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. He was finally released after 42 years in prison in 2016 at age 57, with the help of his attorney George Kendall, and attorney, social justice activist, and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson. Now based in Los Angeles Tyler honed his practice during his time in prison and after his release. He received the Center for Art and Advocacy’s Right of Return Fellowship, and he won the 2024 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize, which, according to the press release, “recognizes an artist who has made a significant impact on society with their work.” Tyler received a $25,000 prize and a solo booth at Frieze Los Angeles at the Santa Monica Airport until March 3.
Courtesy of Gary Tyler and Frieze Los Angeles.
A Wrongful Conviction Five Decades Ago
Five decades ago, in 1974, the then 16-year-old Tyler found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. It all started with an incident at school in Saint Charles, Louisiana. “A young kid got killed,” explained the now 64-year-old Tyler. “I was one of those kids that was quite vocal and protested against the way the police officers treated us. So they arrested me for disturbing the peace and interfering with police officers’ duty. Later on, after them beating me the way they did, they eventually charged me with murder.”
Tyler was wrongfully convicted for committing first-degree murder, and sentenced to death row. “I believed in the American criminal justice system, even when I was young, that the innocents never go to prison,” said Tyler, who wondered how he ended up in a situation like that. “That shows you how easily the system can frame someone for something I didn’t do.”
Courtesy of Gary Tyler and Frieze Los Angeles.
Gary Tyler Reflects on the Transformative Powers of Art
The conviction didn’t deter Tyler from making something of his life. His booth at Frieze Los Angeles shows five vignettes. “This booth is a manifestation of my past and present life,” Tyler told Whitewall at Frieze Los Angeles. One quilt shows a man falling off a bull at a rodeo. “This is a scene about the Angola rodeo and what the prisoners do to put their lives on the line,” he said. Another piece shows a young Tyler behind bars. “This is a scene right here is about me being on death row. C127 was my death row number that they gave me and they had me at cell eight.”
And how did art impact Tyler’s life? “It’s transformed my life, a lot,” said the artist, whose work hangs in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and was exhibited at the Library Street Collective in Detroit. “I never thought that me becoming a graphic artist, using the technique of appliqué and quilting, that it would turn out the way it did.”
