Artist Gary Tyler turns 40 years of wrongful imprisonment into powerful textiles

After living 42 years wrongfully incarcerated in the Angola State Penitentiary, Gary Tyler has spent the past decade living and working as an artist and advocate in Los Angeles.

A political awakening in Los Angeles

Growing up in Louisiana, Gary Tyler experienced some culture shock when he initially moved to South Central L.A. at 12 years old.

“It was like a new world I was venturing into,” Tyler said. “I learned things that I never thought was accessible 'cause it was totally different from the way the culture in the South was. It was more open and engaging.

“I learned about Negro History Week. […] I also walked around the community, knocked on doors and got petitions signed for Angela Davis.

“Coming to L.A. was like walking out of the dark into the light.”

A segregationist mob changes the course of Tyler’s life

After a couple of years, Tyler moved back to Louisiana, where he was part of a group of Black students bused to a formerly all-white high school under court-ordered desegregation.

On Oct. 16, 1974, their bus was attacked by a white mob and a white boy was killed. Tyler was wrongfully convicted of his murder by an all-white jury.

Detroit Newspaper circa 1976

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Courtesy of Gary Tyler's archive

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Multiple witnesses later recanted their testimonies, saying they were pressured by police. Nevertheless, at just 17, Tyler became the youngest person on death row in the country, and was sent to the Louisiana State Prison in Angola, La.

Rodeos, quilting and an unexpected community

Tyler said he was afraid of the people he would meet in prison, but to his surprise, he found a community of older men who came together to protect him.

“Little did I know, despite the appearance of these guys, these guys was caring. These guys were loving,” Tyler said. “And these guys didn't perceive me as a threat at all because I was this little kid in adult prison.”

Tyler paid that care forward in different ways within the community in Angola, spending decades leading the prison theater program and volunteering with the country’s first prison hospice program, which was established in 1988 during the heigh of the AIDS crisis.

It was the need to fund hospice care that led Tyler to learn quilting in order to have something to sell at the notorious Angola Prison Rodeo, an annual fundraiser where inmates risk life and limb facing off against agitated bulls before a crowd.

Tyler resisted the craft at first.

GARY TYLER QUILTS

'Fernanda's Touch,' 2025

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Courtesy of the artist; Library Street Collective, Detroit; and Official Welcome, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford

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'Unforgiven,' 2025

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Courtesy of the artist; Library Street Collective, Detroit; and Official Welcome, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford

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'Convict Poker,' 2025;

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Courtesy of the artist; Library Street Collective, Detroit; and Official Welcome, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford

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“I felt that it was a feminine thing to do in prison,” Tyler said. “But I started thinking about my grandmother when I was this little kid. … I said, 'Wait a minute. I come from a family generation where my grandmother made quilts.' So I started having a different perspective … [that] we’re doing something noble. We doing something that supports dying men in prison.”

As Tyler’s quilts became big sellers at the rodeo and his leadership in the theater program attracted even more attention to his case, Tyler’s lawyers and national and international supporters rallied around his case. Still, it took 42 years for Tyler to be released — in 2016 at the age of 57.

A return to Los Angeles 

With the aid of some of his longtime supporters, Tyler settled in Pasadena, where he became an advocate, working with organizations like A Safe Place For Youth . He continues to make quilts, ranging from colorful butterflies — a symbol of freedom — to depictions of life in incarceration.

“I felt that doing something tangible through my artwork, through quilting … that would give an understanding of my life experience in prison.”

'Illuminations from a Captured Soul' is now on display at the Official Welcome Gallery in Los Angeles through December 20th, 2025.

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Official Welcome Gallery

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Tyler’s newest exhibition of narrative quilts includes portraits of people serving sentences in Angola, depicted not as inmates but as the characters they portrayed in his plays. Tyler says this gives the viewer an opportunity to see their humanity.

And preserving one’s humanity is at the heart of all of Tyler’s work.

“I wanted to maintain my own individuality, knowing that I was an innocent person,” he said. “And I want people to know … even if you’re guilty, there's a chance for change. Never miss out on that opportunity, no matter what.”

"Illuminations from a Captured Soul" is now on display at the Official Welcome Gallery in Los Angeles through Dec. 20.