Gary Tyler
Defiant 1976, (2023-2025)
Official Welcome and Ollin Editions are proud to publish a limited-edition, six-color silkscreen
reinterpreting Gary Tyler’s iconic work Defiant, 1976 (2023-2025).
Prints are available for sale at Official Welcome and 100% of proceeds from sales will go to the artist.
Tyler produced this new edition in Los Angeles with master printer Daniel Wlazlak. The work is published on the occasion of two major milestones: the release of Tyler’s memoir Stitching Freedom (Simon & Schuster, October 7, 2025) and the opening of his first Los Angeles solo exhibition at Official Welcome on November 1, 2025.
We are deeply grateful to the Center for Art and Advocacy and The Hearthland Foundation for making this project possible. Because of their generosity, 100% of proceeds from sales of the print will go directly to the artist.
About the Work
Defiant, 1976 (2023-2025) is a self-portrait of Tyler as a young man the year after he was sentenced to death by the state of Louisiana for a crime he did not commit. In 1977 Tyler was re-sentenced to life in prison after the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional in Roberts vs. Louisiana.
The artist depicts himself as a teenager whose freedom, autonomy, and future had been stolen by the state. Yet he is unbowed and unbroken: surrounded by radiant light, his hands are bound but his fists are clenched, not in stress, but in power.
Wlazlak and the Ollin Editions team worked closely with Tyler to translate the visual language of his quilts into this new medium, encapsulating their depth, texture, and spirit.
About the Artist
Gary Tyler (b. 1958, St. Rose, Louisiana) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles. At the age of 16, he was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Though his case drew international outcry, Tyler spent more than 4 decades incarcerated at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana before his release at age 57.
While in Angola, Tyler directed the prison’s drama program for three decades, became a champion powerlifter, mastered quilting to support the Angola Prison Hospice program, and earned degrees in technical drawing and graphic design. He also devoted himself to caring for fellow prisoners in hospice.
Tyler’s practice — rooted in injustice — generates hope. His work documents the experience of incarceration, celebrates freedom, and memorializes community. He is the recipient of the 2019 and 2020 Art Matters Awards, a 2024 Right of Return Fellowship and the 2024 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize. His work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He has had solo exhibitions at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos-Klosters, Switzerland; Frieze Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; and the Library Street Collective, Detroit, MI.
Artwork Photography: Evan Bedford. Courtesy of the Artist and Official Welcome Los Angeles.
Ollin Editions is a fine art print & multiples publisher, based in Los Angeles
Founded in 2023 by wife and husband Patricia Valencia and Emmett Walsh, our goal is to continue within the rich history of Los Angeles printmaking, and to highlight what is possible in the medium.
By continuing to build on our established relationships with master printmakers and fabricators in Los Angeles and New York, Ollin Editions aims to foster creative, collaborative projects that expand the vision of contemporary artists.