Jesse Krimes

Jesse Krimes is a multimedia artist whose work explores how contemporary media shapes and reinforces societal mechanisms of power and control. Shortly after graduating from Millersville University in Pennsylvania, he was indicted by the US government on drug charges. While serving a six-year prison sentence, he produced numerous bodies of work, established prison art programs, and co-created multi-racial artist collectives. After his release, he founded and currently serves as executive director of the Center for Art & Advocacy, the first national organization dedicated to supporting and elevating the work of formerly incarcerated artists.

Krimes’s 2025 solo exhibition Jesse Krimes: Corrections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art made him the first living formerly incarcerated artist whose work has been acquired by the museum. His work has also been exhibited at numerous venues worldwide, including MoMA PS1, Palais de Tokyo, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, International Red Cross Museum, Zimmerli Museum, Newport Art Museum, and Aperture Gallery. 

The film Art and Krimes by Krimes, which tells the story of Krimes’s artistic practice while incarcerated, won an Emmy in 2023 for Best Arts and Culture Documentary and helped to expand the dialogue about incarceration in this country. Krimes has also collaborated with corporate partners, like The Prisoner Wine Company, to introduce new audiences to the conversation about justice reform.

He has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Creative Capital, Art for Justice Fund, Independence Foundation, and Vermont Studio Center. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Newport Art Museum, OZ Art NWA, Kadist Art Foundation, The Bunker Artspace, and the Agnes Gund Collection.