Our upcoming exhibition “The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists,” will include a selection of portraits by Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.). Born Devyi Orangel Pena Arteaga in Venezuela, Alvarez is an artist devoted to exploring the supernatural through his spiritualistic works on paper, video, installations, and performances that feature fractal patterns and psychedelic shapes. Alvarez’s mystic imagery is inspired by the interconnections among religious tenets, science, and spiritualism. In 2012, while detained at Krome Detention Center in Miami for immigration violations, Alvarez drew portraits of other undocumented immigrants as a way to legitimize their personal presence and existence. Alvarez explains: “For me — and I think for them as well — art became this kind of ultimate act of survival. It was art not only as hope, but as a humanizer and as a savior. It became all of these things for all of us at different moments. It was a way for us to declare our own humanity, that w...