While wrongfully imprisoned for nearly three decades, Raymond Towler sold his paintings as a way to pay for the fight for his freedom. Even though he enjoyed creating art, he said it came with serious pressure.
Raymond Towler
“Because if I didn't satisfy the customer about the art, you know, then I'll probably stay in there … that’s at least the thought in my head,” Towler said, recalling the stress that came along with painting in prison.
Towler estimated he created hundreds of paintings while in prison before he was exonerated in 2010 with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati. While painting and music, his other artistic passion, have sustained him through trying times, he stepped away from painting for a while.
“I kind of feel like my art career had went to a pause,” he said. “I stopped painting, because when I was painting in jail, you know, I was really forcing myself … to paint more than I would naturally.”
More recently, he has been creating colorful abstract paintings and rediscovering the joy in the process. Several of these paintings are now on view in an exhibition of his work at Chagrin Arts in Chagrin Falls, including “Phoenix,” full of vibrant yellow shades as well as reds and a touch of blue.
"Phoenix" by Raymond Towler as seen at Chagrin Arts in Chagrin Falls. [Carrie Wise / Ideastream Public Media]
“I'm kind of naming this painting for me painting again,” Towler said.
The vivid hues in his latest works are contrast at Chagrin Arts with a couple of black and white portraits he created while in prison.
"Witch Doctor" is one of hundreds of paintings Raymond Towler created in jail before he was exonerated. [Raymond Towler]
“To see this kind of come to fruition, with the difference in the contemporary style and these splash[es] of colors, I just told him, makes my eyes smile,” said Karen Prasser, executive director of Chagrin Arts, which focuses on arts programming advancing social justice.
Outside of the Chagrin Arts building on North Main Street, a garden features a sculpture of steel butterflies emerging from old shipping chains. Towler’s name is engraved on one of the more than 30 butterflies recognizing wrongfully convicted Ohioans freed with the assistance of the Ohio Innocence Project.
“Imaginal Cell” by Dean Gillispie honors people exonerated with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project. [Carrie Wise / Ideastream Public Media]
Now freely creating art, Towler is paying it forward to other exonerees and others in need by providing housing with the proceeds from the sales of his art on view at Chagrin Arts through Dec. 23.
“The cause now is for other people to be free,” Towler said.
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