About
I am a Chicago artist that creates collage-driven pop art mutations that remix nostalgia into modern mythology.
I reconstruct forgotten icons, distort familiar imagery, and transform pop culture into something arcane, haunting, and new. These pieces are transmissions from a world that never existed but should have. A universe stitched together from the mythic, the personal, and the half-remembered. They're built for collectors who want to own work that tells a story and dares to get weird.
I saw the weird stuff I grew up loving: zines, monster flicks, punk shows, and outsider comics, slowly fade into the background noise of the algorithm age. This work is my way of keeping that fire alive. It’s a signal flare to fellow misfits, a love letter to the sacred trash and strange beauty that shaped me. Also, my dayjob is a motion designer, and I deal with a lot of corporate branding and rules. This is just a way to express myself without those rules, and to vent artistically.
This project was born during the “unprecedented times” of the pandemic, when everything cracked open. Inspired by artists like Bäst, Prentler, and Warhol, and fueled by comic books and fanzine culture, what started as a coping mechanism evolved into a visual language: emotional turmoil turned inside out. Storycode. Aesthetic meditation. A little social commentary when it fits.
For me, collage pop art is about the juxtaposition between opposing ideas: predator vs. sunny pop, pain and nostalgia, structure and chaos. I'm interested in objects, icons, symbols, cultural shorthand, storycode, and mark making. Jam that into a blender and mutating it into something new, weird, beautiful, haunting, arcane, like hieroglyphic ruins. If people can see a bit of this thing they connect to from the past it can draw them into your visual world. Before the language of memes there is the language of pop culture and the underground, and that’s the language I speak in. It’s the zeitgeist of the 70’s-90’s distilled into an artistic statement.
I like my art like I like my music, raw, honest and loud.
I see myself as a mixed media artist with strong emphases on collage and painting transitioning between the analog and digital world. I love the texture of analog but also have a profound respect for the robust toolset found in the digital and often work will go back and forth the between both worlds. My technique combines analog and digital collage processes into a final original with a painted background and overlapping markings. I paint back into nearly every digital collage printout. I stamp, sign, and date the originals on the back as my artist name is not part of the surface statement.
Speaking of which, Jcrash comes from a nickname that I got from friends. While working as a photographer for an online apartment website I got into a fender bender in Texas driving to go see Zeke and The Donnas. Some buddies started calling me “Crash”. My first name is Jerry and so in the tradition of J Magic, and J Dilla, J Crash was born.
If my work speaks to you, hit me up. Originals, open and limited edition prints, screen prints, zines, stickers, and assorted merch are available. You can also follow me on Instagram to see what I’m currently working on, and join my list to get deeper into the process and get first access to new drops and special releases.