Jesse Krimes

Krimes has collaborated and received public commissions with a focus on prison reform including Amnesty International, Ford Foundation, Open Philanthropy, and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts’ Restorative Justice program, to name a few. Krimes was awarded fellowships by Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2017, the Independence Foundation in the same year, and the Ford Foundation’s Art For Justice initiative in 2018. Krimes is represented by Burning in Water Gallery in New York.

In 2016, JPMorgan Chase settled a lawsuit with Krimes, acting as plaintiff, for charging exorbitant fees for a debit card program that was supposed to help released inmates.

In 2009, after graduating in Art from Millersville University, Krimes was sent to prison for cocaine possession and subsequently served five years of a six year sentence. During this time he devised a way to transfer photos from newspapers and magazines onto soap using hair gel. From this, he cut the bars into works of art and shipped them discreetly out of prison. In his last three years, he was able to gain access to art supplies and was able to produce numerous pieces and mentor others. Krimes explains that “artwork facilitated conversation. And it humanized me to some of the guards. They saw me not as an inmate but as a person.” Upon his release he co-founded Right of Return USA, a fellowship program to support previously incarcerated artists.

Jesse Krimes (born 1982 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) is an American artist and curator who focuses on criminal injustice and contemporary perceptions of criminality.