Crear Studio featured artist Alberto Lule in Deatain & Displace, an exhibition filled with mixed-media installations, readymades, and tools used by agencies of authority to examine and critique the prison industrial complex in the United States. Lule uses his own experience to tie the prison industrial complex to other American political issues such as immigration, homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health. His artwork explores institutional roles as gatekeepers of knowledge, authorities of culture, administrators of discipline, and punishment. 

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About the Artist:

Alberto Lule is a child of undocumented immigrants and a former gang member and prisoner. He started with pencil drawings in prison as a way to make the walls disappear, and after a 14-year sentence, Lule continues to dedicate his time to art as a tool to remain out of prison. Currently, he is a tattoo artist and a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine, on his way to earning a master’s in fine arts with an emphasis in Curatorial Studies and serving as co-chair of a student organization at UCLA called The Underground Scholars Initiative. They are a group of students composed of formerly incarcerated students who aim to support and advocate for formerly incarcerated students and those who are currently incarcerated.