Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts

Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 5, 2026: RSVP here
Admission is free, with donations encouraged. Plan your visit here

This exhibition features selections from Jesse Krimes’s Elegy Quilt series (2020–present), a body of work that renders the personal effects of the U.S. carceral system through portraits of domestic spaces. Drawing on his own experience with incarceration, Krimes (born 1982 in Lancaster, PA; lives and works in Bucks County, PA, and New York, NY) gathers donated clothing and textile fragments from currently and formerly imprisoned individuals and reconstitutes them into intricately patterned quilts that meditate on memory, loss, alienation, and comfort. Continuing in the spirit of American quilting traditions, the works situate these narratives within broader histories of communal making and resilience.

To produce the works on view, Krimes invited detained collaborators to describe a memory of home. He then prompted them to choose a representative animal figure as a symbolic stand-in for the sitter. The quilts, titled after U.S. prisons and jails, become tactile archives grappling with estrangement, yearning, and the complexities of release and reintegration. Through this process, Krimes reframes everyday materials into narratives of dignity and connection, prompting critical reflection on the psychological and physical costs of imprisonment.

Krimes is an internationally exhibited artist whose work is held in major collections, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts was organized by The Fabric Workshop and Museum in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia. The exhibition is curated by Kelly Shindler, “Kippy” Stroud Executive and Artistic Director, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, with Hilde Nelson, Curatorial Fellow.

This exhibition is made possible by
The Joyce Thompson Art Fund + Heavy Weather Fund + Gary and Susie Singer Arts & Culture Foundation + Kathryn Turley-Sonne