From the permanent collection. Art: Inside/Outside.

The mission of Bader+Simon is to feature art that celebrates inclusion while providing insight and education with an edge toward visual activism. The featured artists below are formerly incarcerated individuals who aim to provide insight into the criminal justice system and think differently about those who find themselves behind bars. As Angela Davis states, ““Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings.” This work is a way to shed light on the humanity and talent of their creators.

Russell Craig. Three is a Crowd / The Death of Maurice.

Russell Craig is a painter and Philadelphia native whose work combines portraiture with deeply social and political themes. While incarcerated Craig reconnected with his childhood passion: art. He has gone on to co-create Right of Return with fellow artist Jesse Krimes, and serves as a board member of the Center for Art and Advocacy. Craigs goal for his art is to help change “the understanding of populations all across the country who go out and vote for tough-on-crime policies and tough-on-crime politicians." Craig’s artwork was prominently featured in the critically-acclaimed Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1. His first solo exhibition, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, was featured at Magic Gardens (Philadelphia). Craig has been a featured speaker on multiple panels about criminal justice reform, and he recently served as keynote speaker at the 10th Annual Student Engagement Lecture Series at Manhattan College.

James Yaya Hough. Untitled.

James “Yaya” Hough incarcerated at 17, took art classes and contributed to more than 50 murals installed on the outside walls of the prison as a part of the Mural Arts’ Restorative Justice Program. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life in prison in 2012, and that the ruling would be applied retroactively, he was resentenced and released in 2019. Hough has since returned to his native Pittsburgh and has been featured in museum exhibits at MoMA PS1, the African American Museum and is committed to changing the prison system. He hopes to abolish life without parole sentences through the organizations Decarcerate PA! and Project LifeLines.

Jesse Krimes. Polanski.

Jesse Krimes is a Philadelphia based artist and curator, and, along with Russell Craig, is the co-founder of Right of Return USA, the first national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists. Krimes’ work exploress how contemporary media shapes or reinforces societal mechanisms of power and control. His work has been featured world wide and is in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum,  The Bunker Artspace, OZ Art NWA, Kadist Art Foundation, and the Agnes Gund Collection. Krimes serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Art & Advocacy, the first and only national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists. His TED talk, where he discusses how art and prison let us understand life’s complexities, is worth a worth a watch.

Mark Loughney. General Pop (diptych).

Mark Loughney is a formerly-incarcerated painter, draftsman, and portraitist whose art acts as a national courier for criminal justice reform efforts. His series of unconventional drawings were initiated during late-night hours within the confines of a prison cell. The spontaneous flow of thoughts during these challenging periods resulted in compelling outcomes that continue to influence both his drawings and paintings.

Mark’s portrait project, titled Pyrrhic Defeat: A Visual Study Of Mass Incarceration, was first shown in its early stage at The Wonderstone Gallery, then went on to be a major part of the award winning exhibition Marking Time: Art In The Age Of Mass Incarceration, which debuted at MoMA PS1 in 2020. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Forbes, Artforum, The Paris Review, Hyperallergic, and NPR, among many other media outlets.

Ray Materson was sentenced to 15 years in a Connecticut state penitentiary after criminal activity to support his drug habit. To keep himself san, Materson taught himself to embroider, using unraveled socks for thread and sewing needles that were secured from a prison guard. His miniature work depicted images outside prison life that included up to 1,200 stitches per square inch and measuring less than 2.5 x 3 inches.

After his release in 1995, Materson has worked as a teacher, counselor, caseworker, program director, design consultant and speaker. He self-published his autobiography “Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending,” and in 2003 he became the first artist to receive the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Award.

Materson's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions at The American Museum of Folk Art in New York City, The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, The Center for Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA, The Boston Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, among others.

Omid Mokri. Just Waiting. 2011.

Omid Mokri is an Iranian American artist classically trained in Iran in miniatures. This practice became a vehicle for survival while in prison in the United States. While incarcerated, Mokri used his work to tell the stories of inmates fighting to persevere against a system denying them their humanity, sketching inmate portraits on commonplace, symbolic items such as non-sufficient fund envelopes. Mokri was released from San Quentin during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now uses his work as a platform for social commentary and advocacy.

Jared Owens. Ellapsium V.

Jared Owens is an multidisciplinary artist whose work aims to bring awareness to the plight of the nearly 2.5 million people incarcerated within the American carceral state. He is self taught during this more than 18 years of incarceration, working in painting, sculpture, and installation, using materials and references culled from penal matter.

Owens has exhibited extensively at several museums, including Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1 in New York, Rendering Justice at the African American Museum of Art in Philadelphia, The O.G. Experience in partnership with HBO and SOZE in Chelsea, NYC, Made in America: Unfree Labor in the Age of Mass Incarceration”at Hampshire College, Amhurst, NH, amongst many other locations. In 2020 he received a Right of Return Fellowship from SOZE Agency and in 2019 a Restorative Justice grant from Philadelphia Mural Arts to create a mural with teenagers under court supervision; in 2016-17 he was the recipient of a grant from the Eastern State Penitentiary to produce “Sepulture,” a large-scale installation, and was a 2021-22 Fellow at Silver Arts Projects.

Sherrill Roland. With Heart, Letter #061614

Sherrill Roland was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2013 when he was wrongfully accused of four felonies. Before an indictment was reached, he finished his first year of grad school. After nine months, the four felony charges were dropped to four misdemeanor charges. Roland’s interdisciplinary work deals with concepts of innocence, identity, and community; reimagining their social and political implications in the context of the American criminal justice system. The artist holds a BFA and MFA and uses drawings, sculptures, multimedia objects, performances, and participatory activities to share his story and create space for others to do the same, illuminating the invisible costs, damages, and burdens of incarceration. 

Gary Tyler. Emboldened, 1992 Sketch (L) and Unwavering, 1988/1989 (R).

Gary Tyler, at 16 years old, was arrested by the police in St. Charles, Louisiana, following an incident in which he and a group of other Black American students were attacked by a crowd of White people while riding a bus home from school. During this confrontation, a 13-year-old White boy named Timothy Weber was killed by a gunshot. By age 17, he would be put on death row after a trial that was later deemed “unconstitutional” and “unfair.” Rosa Parks stated that “If there is any strength that I have left I will do whatever I can to help free this young brother.” After spending 42 years in prison, Tyler’s wrongful conviction was overturned.

Tyler began making artwork in prison, notably quilts. He commented that “No matter where you’re at, that talent has a way of flourishing. There’s something good that could come out of prison, despite what an individual went to prison for, whether they’re innocent or guilty.”

In 2024, Tyler was awarded the Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize, a prize that recognizes an artist who has made a significant impact on society with their work. Autobiographical Landscapes presents a conversation with the prolific artist on his journey.