A group of maximum-security prison artists puts their hard time to good use
By Theo Douglas

FACTS by GABRIEL REYES

Thousands of tiny brush strokes, each very carefully committed, are the first thing you see in “Art Behind Bars: Drawings from the SHU at Pelican Bay Prison,” a new exhibit in San Pedro. Considering how isolated they are from each other, it’s ironic, that all the inmates in this show have evolved a similar, microscopic style and visual vocabulary. But then again, most have lived together for years in the SHU.

The Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California is a little slice of maximum security in an already fearsome maximum-security prison. Cloistered in one of the nation’s supermax joints—a mausoleum of about 1,200 living souls—SHU inmates really have a lot of time to make art. Dying and snitching are two of the few ways to get off the SHU, but most won’t ever leave—which makes their short biographies accompanying “Art Behind Bars” a compelling window into their wasted days and nights.

Just like in the SHU, this is a show of mostly Latino men; and most create using the grayscale Jack Rudy, Lowrider Arte magazine vocabulary of so much prison art. You’ll see the “Smile Now/Cry Later” sober clowns; the vatos with slick pompadours and enviable hairlines; the sad cholas, resigned mamis, hot Azteca maidens, the dapper homes—all vividly rendered.

The best moments are when these small, sober, mostly black-and-white paintings show what their creators might have done with their lives. Lifer Jack L. Morris, a seven-year SHU inmate, delivers a fairly conventional Sacrifice, a traditional Aztec temple-sacrifice scene—but he inserts cartoony cacti that bloom from the desert floor below. In I Introduce Myrna, inmate Jesus Garcia gives us his love, a tousled, dark-eyed Myrna, next to a rebel who must be Emiliano Zapata, and his skill shows every hair on the patriot’s mustache. Inmate Gabriel Ramirez shares a haggard, frowzy Frankenstein, then tightens up his technique for a crisp, black-and-white mountain scene, Brave on Horse.

It’s stylized and sometimes a bit obvious, and some of it’s over the top, but these men’s years of self-taught skill shine through—and occasionally, their personalities.

ART BEHIND BARS: DRAWINGS FROM THE SHU AT PELICAN BAY PRISON UNDER THE BRIDGE BOOKSTORE AND GALLERY | 358 W SIXTH ST | SAN PEDRO 90731 | 310.519.8871 | MYSPACE.COM/UNDERTHEBRIDGEBOOKSTORE | OPEN TUES-WED 12-4 PM, THURS-SAT 12-6 PM | FREE | THROUGH JULY 7