Suave Gonzalez is the first formerly incarcerated person in the United States to ever win a Pulitzer Prize Award and IDA International Documentary Award for his podcast “SUAVE”. Through his colorfully confrontational works, Philadelphia artist and activist Suave Gonzalez proves the political power of art. Suave is a self-taught street muralist and artist, working mostly with acrylic and mixed-media. He inventively reimagines pop style portraiture and highly political work that visually speak to issues of human struggle and justice. After serving 31 years in prison, Suave is extremely proud of being a 2018 Art For Justice Reimagining Reentry Fellow.

Suave grew up in the South Bronx. While serving a Life Sentence in the sixth largest prison in America, Graterford State prison in Pennsylvania, Suave committed to becoming the voice for the voiceless-he earned a BA from Villanova University and worked as president of LACEO, a latin organization that has given away 110 scholarships funded by inmates from their own wages. In 2008 Suave created the Education Over Incarceration scholarship with his own prison wage. Suave continued this community based work after his release. He had worked as a case manager for the 25th Police District, assisting low level offenders avoid prison. He was also the Director of a resource center in the heart of North Philadelphia; In 2020 Suave painted 100 essential workers who are risking their lives to help others during the Covid pandemic.

Suave was a 2014 TEDx talk presenter, a 2018 Philadelphia TEDx presenter, and a 2018 Art For Justice Reimagining Reentry Fellow. He is the creator and co-host of ‘A Justice Conversation’ , author of 6 novels, and had taught a watercolor course at the University of Pennsylvania off campus site ‘The Center for Carceral Community’. Suave is the subject of the acclaimed podcast ‘SUAVE’. Suave Gonzalez was born to inspire, and his drive to do so is boundless.