Jesse Krimes is an artist, curator, educator, former inmate, and activist whose work tackles and fights the US prison-industrial complex. The utter failure of the US prison system is one of the most grotesque social-ills facing America. Krimes, who is a central member of an expanded community of formerly detained artists working to correct these ills, is also one of the leading practitioners in the country dealing with the justice system through the means of both art and activism. Krimes's adroit approach to his subject matter is of course informed by the experience of his own confinement; his technique is forged and stamped by the material constraints of prison life. Krimes has worked on issues concerning detainment with Amnesty International and the Ford Foundation, for whom he was a 2018 Art For Justice Initiative Fellow, as well as a successful co-plaintiff against JP Morgan Chase in a class-action lawsuit in which the bank was charged with price gouging ex-convicts enrolled in an inmate debit card program post-release.