A Rogues’ Gallery of Art on Display

When curator Laura Magnani looks at the unusual exhibit, she sees an eloquent argument why the artist should not be executed in California’s death chamber eight days from today.

The serene still-lifes, the delicate penciled nude, the Masai warrior rendered in watercolor, are all proof to Magnani that “there’s something else in the person that’s worth saving. You can’t really look at these pieces without seeing that.”

When victims’ rights advocate Marc Klaas thinks about that same exhibit--”Visions of Life: Art Out of Death Row” by Jaturun Siripongs, who was convicted of a double murder in Orange County--he wishes the show was more complete.

“If they show an exhibition of his artwork, they should also show an exhibition of his crime scene,” Klaas said. “That would allow people to make a more balanced judgment.”

Balanced judgment is hard to come by when considering the works of prison artists. From the ghoulish clown art of John Wayne Gacy to the paintings of “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, this “outside art” or “raw art” often raises hackles, sometimes raises money for art supplies, occasionally even raises consciousness.

Magnani, program director for justice and youth at the American Friends Service Committee, is hoping for changed minds. Siripongs is scheduled for a clemency hearing before the Board of Prison Terms on Tuesday.

Invitations to the condemned man’s exhibit show a detailed portrait of an Asian woman on the front--a black-and-white version of one of Siripongs’ 32 works on display. On the back, the cards exhort viewers to “write now for clemency to Gov. Gray Davis.”

“Visions of Life” went on exhibit Jan. 20 at the rambling YWCA building in downtown Oakland, where plans are for it to remain until the day after Siripongs’ scheduled execution.

Jaturun “Jay” Siripongs, 43, faces execution for the strangulation death of a food store manager and the fatal stabbing of a clerk during a 1981 robbery in Garden Grove. The Thai native was arrested two days after the murders, when he tried to purchase a television with a victim’s credit card.

Siripongs was scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 16, when a federal judge halted the execution to consider a claim that the former Buddhist monk’s civil rights were violated when Gov. Pete Wilson denied clemency.

Many of those fighting against Siripongs’ execution believe that he was present during the robbery but did not commit the murders. Prosecutors point to the cuts on Siripongs’ hands, the dried blood in his car and the knives and jewelry found in his home to underscore his guilt.

According to Death Penalty Focus of California, which is fighting Siripongs’ execution, the inmate has admitted involvement in the robbery but contends that an accomplice killed the victims. Siripongs has refused to identify the accomplice and none has been charged.

“In Jay’s case we actually think he did not commit the crime,” said Magnani, whose organization has exhibited inmate art for decades. For those who have committed crimes, the art they create is “a way for people to see the human side of prisoners, to understand that people are not the sum total of their worst act.”

Siripongs began drawing as a teenager in his native Thailand. But he did not “fully develop his artistic talents until he went to San Quentin in 1983,” according to the biography that accompanies the show.

He is self-taught, works in his death row cell and favors realism, the biography says, “because it requires no interpretation and is consistent with his Buddhist practice of seeing and accepting people and things as they are.”

Throughout his 17 years at San Quentin, Siripongs has created more than 600 pieces--almost all of which he has given away to friends and attorneys. He has worked in a variety of media, including pencil, pen and ink, oil and chalk pastel, acrylic, water color and origami. He buys his materials from the prison canteen.

These days, though, as his execution looms and his life constricts, “he’s down to pencils now,” Magnani said, as she walks visitors through the spare room where Siripongs’ works hang.

After a crowded opening-day reception, the free exhibit has drawn a steady trickle of art lovers, attorneys and the simply curious who have made the requisite appointment to view the condemned man’s work.

So far there has been no organized protest, in part because activists in the victims’ rights movement don’t want to draw even more attention to a display they consider utterly insensitive, said Susan Fisher, state vice chairwoman for the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau.

“There are always going to be people out there who buy or look at this kind of stuff for freak value,” said Fisher, who attended Siripongs’ first clemency hearing. “But the people who feel there’s enough value in this man that they put on an art show . . . are who I think are most appalling.”

Curiosity brought Winton McKibben out last week to see Siripongs’ work. He wanted to see how a prisoner might spend his confinement, wanted to look for clues to what could possibly rehabilitate someone behind bars.

Siripongs’ work, said the art docent and retired superior court judge, is pleasant and colorful, technically well done, but “I wouldn’t call it great art. . . . There’s a lot of things he could do commercially. I’m not advocating that he be released, but he could benefit from others, and that’s worth saving.”

Siripongs paints, said Magnani, for the same reasons all artists work--self-expression, self-discovery, the creation of beauty. But layered on top of those traditional explanations are a few others. Prison is boring. Death row is “horrendous.”

“Having this outlet, he’s just lucky,” she said.

Alfred Dyer, who has spent 16 years on death row for killing two people, likes to paint, he wrote, because it “helps me to feel free. My mind is in another world then, not in lockup on death row.”

Dyer’s work hangs, along with the work of several prisoners and at least one other condemned man, at Expressions, a gallery of African American art just off Oakland’s main drag. In a 1996 letter to the gallery’s owners, Dyer wrote that “painting is therapy for me, helping my thoughts from becoming over-stressed.”

Although there is little mystery as to why inmates paint and draw, it can be a bit more difficult to understand why anyone would want to own the work of people behind bars.

The Rev. Alan Laird, owner of Expressions gallery, said some people become intrigued by the artists’ stories and see their purchase of prison art as a kind of “reaching out” to the inmates.

In the case of the world’s better-known criminals, simple notoriety is often the explanation. Laird noted that there is a small core of collectors who buy what he dubs “executed art.”

“Once the prisoner is executed, the art will go up to maybe 10 times the value,” said Laird, who sells most artworks by prisoners for $300 to $400.

Then there’s Joe Roth, who spent $20,000 at a 1994 auction to buy more than two dozen artworks by executed serial killer Gacy--so he could burn them. “We wanted them wiped off the map,” he said at the time.

Defense attorney Kendall Goh owns half a dozen of Siripongs’ works, some on display in the Oakland exhibit. She contends that the people who own his works are not among the ghoulish or revenge-seeking.

They know the man. They care about him. As a result, none of the pieces currently on display are for sale.

“His works are gifts of love,” said Goh. “He gives them to people he cares about. For the most part these are gifts from the heart.”