A lighthouse. Numerous out-stretched hands. A kite soaring above a beach. Many prodigal embraces. Cages. Crabs. Serpents. Masks. Faithful reproductions of The Last Supper. And, of course, numerous depictions of Jesus trudging toward Golgotha, and the iconic end result, bloody crucifixions.

This is a rough inventory of the prison art exhibit “Art From the Inside” sponsored by Prison Fellowship International and held at Campbell House, the oldest remaining building from the original town of York—present day Toronto.

Built in 1822 by Chief Justice William Campbell and his wife Hannah, it is now a museum dedicated to preserving Toronto history and culture. The house has been fully restored to its original condition, and furnished with original and period appropriate furniture. The walls are hung with intaglio prints of King George and British aristocrats in powdered wigs, a dramatic oil painting of the Battle of Lake Erie, and stuffy portraits of Sir Campbell and his wife looking waxen and irritated.

The art, made by prisoners from all over the world (Belarus, Columbia, Canada, Portugal, Poland, etc.) shares wall space with these mannered, academic works from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The work of educated and trained artists, which one imagines was mostly commissioned, hangs side by side with work that no one asked for, and no would otherwise care to look at if PFI hadn’t created this occasion for it.

I spent the morning interviewing two of the arists, Carlos Velasquez of Columbia and Kazimierz Pawlowski of Poland, both of whom became artists and converted to Christianity as the result of mystical visions they experienced while incarcerated. Following the example of PFI founder Chuck Colson (who spent time for his role in Watergate), both Pawlowski and Velasquez visit prisons on a regular basis to tell their story and show their art.

When I enter the exhibit, I immediately begin looking for their work. I’m nervous that I won’t like it, but I’m also concerned that my judgment as to whether it is good or not will be clouded by what I know about these men. Their stories are so heart-wrenching and the arc of their lives so beautiful that I feel like judging their art will be like disbelieving the sincerity of their conversions.

Over lunch, Velasquez told me the story (through his translator) of his conversion. His mother died when he was only twelve years old, and his grieving father turned to alcohol to drown the pain. Around the same time, Carlos’ uncle was recruited by a powerful drug lord to help process cocaine. Soon Carlos’ whole family was involved in the processing and distribution of cocaine. Carlos was only fourteen years old, and though he knew that what he was doing was wrong, working for a cartel brought status. He had money, women, and a gun.

After nearly a decade in the cartel, married and a father of a two-year-old, he and some friends were partying at the cocaine processing laboratory. Carlos had purchased a new rifle and he was proud of it. He was showing it off, brandishing it, when it discharged, wounding his son. That day Velasquez promised God he would change if only He would spare his son’s life.

His son lived, but Velasquez did not change, and soon he found himself in the most notorious prison in Columbia. While in prison God revealed to him in dream that he needed to return to woodworking, a craft that he showed great skill in as a child. So he began carving again, and now two decades later, Velasquez makes a living off of the commissions he earn from his religious sculpture and carvings.

Pawlowski’s spent his entire adolescence and early adulthood begging, borrowing, and stealing to feed his addiction to alcohol and drugs. He stole from his dying mother. He attempted suicide with his own bootlaces. He had numerous religious epiphanies, and made solemn promises to priests and homeless shelter administrators that he would clean up his life, which he broke over and over again.

But it wasn’t until he was 35 and in jail that he finally gave his life over to Christ and began treatment for his addictions. He wasn’t like Carlos Velasquez who had shown artistic talent as a young boy; Kazimierz sees his talent as an artist as a gift from the Holy Spirit, an outpouring of grace triggered when he finally began leading a sober life.

I am happy to discover that Velasquez’s wooden sculpture of a lion laying down with a lamb has won second prize in the exhibition. It sits in the middle of what would have been Sir Campbell’s dining room table, next to work that is much more art brut—a small person sitting on a perch inside a bird cage made of newspaper.

But even out of this context, even if it were not in this show, I would have to admit that it is impressive. It’s larger than I imagined. It’s not some bit of whittling he did while passing time in the yard. It shows ambition and skill, and it shows the way he sees the relationship between his art and his faith. The sculpture seems to assert what I’ve been hearing all morning in my interviews: that with God all things are possible.

Just behind the table leaning against the wall, I recognize some of Pawlowski’s oil paintings. I have already seen reproductions of these in a book that he gave me after my interview. The style is surreal, the colors garish, the execution and vision is what a collector like Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term art brut, would celebrate for its deeply personal and un-academic feel.

I have to admit that I am having a harder time with his work. It strikes me at first as childish and sinister at the same time. Christ is wan and bedecked in the scariest crown of thorns I have ever seen depicted, the backgrounds swirl, figures blur and morph in what seems a bad imitation of surrealism, storm clouds gather on the horizon.

But then I notice that in three of the four paintings there is some reference to a mask. Someone is either putting one on or taking one off, or the faces of the figures seem, like Picasso’s famous portrait of Getrude Stein, mask-like.

Noticing this, Pawlowski’s work, and the work of so much of the art hanging and leaning sadly against the walls of this Georgian style mansion, becomes so deeply moving that I begin to tear up.

It has become clear to me that the work of the artist, especially the artist struggling to believe, is a means, not an end.