Chicago-born artist Mike Sullivan has been busy over the last three years, earning a Bachelor’s in Art, Activism, and Community Education from Northeastern Illinois University; a Master’s in Christian Ministry with an emphasis on restorative arts; and exhibiting artwork at many cultural venues, including the DuSable Museum, Co-Prosperity Art Gallery, Haymarket House, and Borzello Gallery at the Ford Center for the Fine Arts—all of which he accomplished while incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, IL. Following the announced closure of Stateville in spring 2024 after years of organized pressure against the death-making conditions at the facility, the lives of hundreds of incarcerated men who lived, organized, made art, and found community with one another at the facility are set to be altered as the population is transferred to other prisons across the state. Before his transfer from Stateville in September, Sullivan and I recorded a conversation about his artistic journey, community pedagogies, and the shifting prison landscape in Illinois. 

Gabrielle Christiansen: To start, would you mind telling me about how making art has changed how you understand the world around you? Are you an artist because you were predisposed to attentively looking at your environment?

Mike Sullivan: Art has given me a deeper perception of the world. I always benefit from being conscious of my surroundings. However, it didn’t start off this way. Prior to my incarceration, I saw art as a hobby, [or] an objective process a person performs. The underlying creative process involved in artmaking eluded me—it was only through my incarceration that I started to see things more holistically. 

In prison, there’s a tension between aesthetics and politics. Carceral spaces are designed to be visually dull and void of color. Gray and white are the dominant shades that make up the concrete walls. In the beginning, I was placed in a cell for two weeks with nothing but linen, cosmetics, and a pencil and paper. After several days of staring at the gray walls, I created small sketches in shades of gray. I remember thinking: These gray walls are designed to dampen my spirit. I’m going to use the same gray shades to create beautiful artwork. That was the start of my journey with graphite. Every time I render a drawing here, I’m enhancing life in an inert environment, and I’m contemplating how different things would have been if I had always predisposed to attentively looking at the world in the way I do now.

GC: You’ve talked about being unexpectedly assailed by the beauty of landscape scenes in films you’ve seen, or by plant life breaking through cracks in the concrete and windows of Stateville’s dilapidated campus. I know you are an artist who also loves science—how do these twin interests influence your practice? 

MS: I have been especially drawn to the relationship between organic life and inanimate objects—those interactions increase my wonder and ability to imagine. I became attentive through artmaking, seeing simple things in the most astute manner. Even a rusty, broken-down truck sitting in a bed of overgrown grass in the film All About the Benjamins became aesthetically pleasing with this mindset—ready to be painted. Being studious mentally and emotionally allows me to be in the moment, contemplate, and theorize about what I am experiencing. 

I’m interested in drawing and writing things related to the left and right hemispheres of the brain—intersect[ions] of two disciplines, creating a synergy that enhances my art practice. As a child, I discovered that I had an ambidextrous mind, being able to use either hand in most things. At times, this presented challenges [like] trying to figure out what hand to throw with or hold a pool stick with. In grade school, I wrote predominantly with my left, but at times drew with my right. My teacher, who [noticed], still marked me in the school record as a right-hander. I remember being a 12-year-old kid trying to explain to the teacher why she should not deem me to be [purely] right-hand. In my mind, my teacher had unintentionally nullified all my left-handed experiences, placing me in a binary box of either/or when I was always both/and. 

Today, I identify as being both left and right-handed, an artist and scientist, able to use both parts of my brain equally. For instance, on my road to learning to draw the human figure, I studied the science of medical anatomy, dissecting the body into parts and regions and separating the systems down to the cellular level. It was then that I could intuit an artistic study of anatomy. I could thereafter rebuild and reinterpret the human form to my liking. That philosophical approach to art and science fuels my creative process and gives me the flexibility to express myself didactically and abstractly. 

GC: After picking up a range of skills in artmaking through experimentation, teachings of other incarcerated artists, books on artists of the historical canon, and coursework, you developed a robust teaching practice of your own, which extends beyond art to law practice and writing. What did art pedagogy look like for you early on in your practice, and what does art pedagogy mean to you now? What role does the sharing of knowledge play within broader intellectual, political, and creative battles for liberation that you’ve advocated for over the years?

MS: In my earlier work, I was interested in enhancing existing objects through art—making the things that I studied and drew more aesthetically pleasing. In my recent work, I’ve moved toward artmaking that connects humanity and promotes universal awareness of social justice. This transition occurred through obtaining my education and [teaching].

I am not speaking against the artist [who] chooses to express through the enhancement of objects—many artists have captured moments in time that have moved and inspired generations. But what I’m speaking [about] is artmaking as visual literacy, combining artistic skills with pedagogical skills and putting contemporary issues in the foreground of broader historical frameworks. That mixture of interests created a unique lane for me to teach multiple disciplines through art, including law, philosophy, and history. It also gives me the ability to illuminate a movement’s message by giving visual form to how one endures injustice abstractly, educating people on politics while highlighting its connection to the world. 

For instance, I drew a vacant lot and displayed it for young adults in the institution. I told them that there are hundreds of vacant lots in Chicago. I then asked them to imagine what systemic events occurred that led up to this image, and asked: “How can this piece of land be used to better the community?” Art pedagogy can turn almost any space into an educational zone.

GC: What role has art played in your relationships at Stateville and with those in the free world?

MS: When I first entered the carceral setting, I had small children. My art [maintained relationships] with them. I drew everything and anything for them: portraits, superheroes, celebrities, homemade birthday cards, and paintings. My sons had accumulated so much artwork that it covered all four walls of their bedroom. They titled their bedroom walls “Daddy’s Walls.” Whenever I talked to them over the phone, I would educate them on the images they [saw]. I gave them history lessons and encouraged them to reach for the stars. When my oldest son decided to pursue a career in 3D animation, I was elated, and knowing that I helped to rear this dream from a carceral setting was humbling. He went on to earn his Bachelor’s in 3D Animation and was recently hired as a game designer.

Although my youngest son did not pursue art as a career, he still holds onto the memories of feeling centered through his dad’s artmaking. Artmaking has given me a presence in my children’s lives and allowed me to develop an unbreakable bond. I have created artwork for family members of other individuals in this carceral setting. There have been times when I was having a visit with my family and someone approached me, visiting their family, thanking me for the portrait I drew of them. With portraits, the artist has to become intimate with the photograph he or she is drawing from. Every face tells [a] story. People innately understand this, because when I meet someone for the first time after I’ve painted a portrait of them, they treat me as if they knew me beforehand. Art connects human beings in a personal and relational way, regardless of distance.

GC: Your recently exhibited portraits at Co-Prosperity Gallery used scale in a way I had not seen before. Two life-size, full-body portraits of a grown man and a child are seen being held up against a wall. The size of these was so affecting, not only because they place the viewer at the site of police violence at the scale of real life, but also because I had trouble imagining how you might have worked on them within an 8-by-8-foot cell. Historically, you’ve mostly produced smaller-scale, intimate works, easily held within the hands, but have also collaborated on larger murals. What does scale mean for you? How do different projects begin to take up space on different registers?

MS: When I create a piece of artwork, it’s a liberating experience—a conduit to seeing the human spirit. Scaling up is still new to me, as this carceral setting doesn’t promote the creation of large-scale artwork. Freedom of expression is a First Amendment right granted by the US Constitution, and artmaking should be respected based on that. However, due to this environment being controlled, restrictions are placed on that right. Artmaking for me is generally limited by the 18-by-24 inch paper or canvas that we can purchase from the commissary. Due to that reality, I never thought about scale outside of the limitations placed on artists in the carceral setting—it was something I imagined to take place elsewhere in society. 

In my earlier work, I drew portraits on 8-by-11-inch typing paper with a number two lead pencil. After learning about more materials, I began using more appropriate tools for my projects. The first piece I scaled up was a painting of a teenager breaking the school-to-prison pipeline. The scale was 5-by-12-feet, which three of us artists painted together. This art project was [in] collaboration with the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project here at the institution. That experience was good for me—working with other talented artists made me feel a part of something much bigger than myself.

Three years later, I had an opportunity to create a work for an exhibit at Co-Prosperity. I worked on my first charcoal drawing on paper—that, I was not familiar with. Having little space to create large drawings in the cell, I had to be innovative. I scaled the paper based on the width and length of the cell’s floor—30-by-70 inches—and turned the concrete floor into my easel. I drew from the top down, awkwardly placing my body away from the marks of the charcoal. The completed drawing was a depiction of a prior event that I endured as a teenager—a drawing of me and my two-year-old nephew, being placed against the wall as suspects by two police officers. That drawing was shown on CBS News in May 2024. The experience of creating that artwork was new and exhilarating, it was a whole-body experience—nothing I had ever experienced before. I learned that when you scale up, it becomes a gift to the world to truly appreciate and feel ownership of. It connects people to the broader human family.

GC: You use various media: oil paint, watercolors, colored pencils, graphite, charcoal, and ink. Do you have a favorite medium? Do certain projects call for certain media?

MS: Certain kinds of projects call for certain kinds of mediums. For projects that are life-size or larger, charcoal and acrylic paint is best. Working with 18-by-24 inches or smaller, watercolor, graphite, colored pencils, and ink are appropriate. Anything between 18-by-24 inches and 3-by-10 feet is good for oil paint.

My favorite medium is colored pencil, because of its flexibility. I started off learning how to render with graphite and ink while studying the principles of foreshortening. That laid the foundation for me and gave me the confidence to explore other mediums. I learned color theory and taught myself how to use oil paint, watercolor, acrylic paint, pastels, and colored pencils. The interesting thing about exploring so many mediums is that every medium has a learning curve that every artist must journey and labor through. I remember switching from graphite to watercolor—the advancements I’d made and knowledge I’d built with graphite and ink did not transfer over right away. In the beginning, I was similar to a child learning something new for the first time. I fumbled, tripped, and stumbled through the medium, learning from trial and error—it was a humbling experience. That process was repeated each time I took on the task of learning a new medium. 

Colored pencils were the exception—I easily transferred the knowledge I gained from other mediums, allowing me to center myself on this one. Gradually, colored pencils became my favorite tool to use because they shared many of the same characteristics of all the mediums I’d learned to use: the rendering of graphite and ink was the same as rendering with colored pencils; the smudging technique of graphite was similar to the burnishing process; the layering of watercolor mimicked the way I was able to layer with colored pencils. All in all, the beauty of artmaking in multiple mediums is that the process is always evolving, and what may be my favorite today may change as I continue to grow as an artist. 

GC: In your bachelor’s capstone project, you wrote that your pedagogy necessarily “leans on the student and his community’s cultural wealth of knowledge and value to bring forth aesthetic awareness, cultural affirmation, community building, self-discovery, and social justice.” As pedagogues, how do we draw from, stimulate, empower, and weaponize the kind of “cultural wealth” that is found in the community or outside of the academic art mainframe? 

MS: Recognizing one’s cultural wealth as a foundation gives a person choice and permission to engage their society critically—it centers the individual. My understanding of the necessity of the utilization of cultural wealth started with the teachings I received from my grandfather as a child. He was a source of stimulating knowledge. He told me about his experiences of being African-American fighting in World War II and growing up in Chicago in the 1920s and 30s. He showed me those vacant lots on the south side of Chicago and explained to me what used to stand there. My grandfather [had] deep, thought-provoking conversations with me at ten years old. The knowledge and wisdom he bestowed on me was a huge contrast from what I was receiving in the classroom at the time. With my grandfather, learning was personal, interesting, and empowering. Utilizing personal history through one’s artmaking as a base, and connecting it to a shared history, gives the individual the confidence to reimagine themselves, see their beauty, and know that their community is a rich resource.

GC: I know you’re applying for PhD programs, some in arts education—how do you plan to think about artistic pedagogy in your graduate work?

MS: I plan to incorporate artistic pedagogy into my research by finding a program where lived experience and experimental work are celebrated and respected. I am learning that not all PhD programs are created equal. Some doctorate programs are narrow, wanting your project of focus to be based on one discipline. Other doctorate programs are the total opposite, only accepting potential candidates whose Master’s are based [on] interdisciplinary study. Because artistic pedagogy speaks to the breadth of who I am, I have searched for programs that I can blend all this content into. I applied to several PhD programs—Northern Illinois University was one of them. They have an interesting art, design, and education program, and appear to be inclusive with content. I read several articles from faculty members in their program and found that they support research created through the triangular framework of learning—a model that flattens the hierarchical relationship amongst teachers, students, and artwork. It allows the students’ experiences, or cultural wealth, to be included in the learning process. This model aligns with my theory, practice, and research in artistic pedagogy. I have new knowledge to bring to many disciplines—I hope that the admissions department sees this and gives me an opportunity. 

GC: Since the news of Stateville and Logan’s impending demolition, I’ve been thinking about the word closure. For years, communities on the inside and outside have been calling on the state to take accountability for the infrastructural conditions and the health impacts at Stateville. Watching bulldozers remove these dilapidated buildings from the Illinois landscape is certainly a victory—but knowing the plans for a rebuild, and knowing how Stateville’s closure affects the inside community in the meantime, I know that true closure from this closure cannot occur without mechanisms of release, as a bare minimum. True closure is not displacing the population of Stateville to other prisons with slightly more updated fixtures. I read a definition of closure recently as “a sense of resolution or conclusion at the end of an artistic work.” Do you have thoughts on the idea of closure? Does art have a role in this (and other kinds of) closure? 

MS: It’s difficult to measure or quantify the role that art has had in the so-called closure of Stateville Correctional. I know that visual art was consistently used to bring awareness to the public, legislative bodies in the state, and the media regarding the deplorable conditions in here. When artmaking comes from within the carceral setting, it has the potential to become a political statement. The marginalized artist must attempt to shift an oppressive culture, not promote it. I’ve spent over two and a half decades in Stateville, witnessing the deterioration of its infrastructure. The poor conditions in this particular carceral setting were intentionally created, not the result of neglect, and art got that truth out to society. Art also has a way of potentially challenging language. For instance, the phrase “Stateville is going through a closure”—according to the Oxford dictionary, closure means a “feeling that an upsetting experience has been resolved.” Stateville is being closed, but also remodeled or rebuilt — the word rebuilt is the caveat to that closure. If Stateville was truly closing, the qualitative evidence needed for true closure would be, at the very least, releasing those [who] are behind bars and fit to rejoin society. 

---