Art at the Intersection of Science and Abstraction
Welcome to the world of Jason Crow.
I'm an artist based in East Dallas whose work explores space, time, and organism through an abstract visual language inspired by the microscopic and macroscopic beauty of biological form. I aim to translate complex structures into captivating compositions. I also have extensive experience in illustration and cartooning, along with a quirky sense of humor that ranges from the absurd, cloyingly clownish to the sublime and beautiful.
A lifetime of Image-Making and Inquiry
Across a lifetime of creating art in various media, my work has been described as cubist, futurist, and—at moments—analogous to medical illustration. At its core, my practice constitutes an extended inquiry into space, time, and organism. Drawing from scanning electron micrographs and the structures of plants and animals. I pursue abstraction while striving to maintain a disciplined, illustrative precision.
I also work fluently in photography, fibers, sculpture, and paper folding, with extensive experience in nature photography. Primarily, my practice includes pen and ink. I feel confident with a ballpoint pen. As of late I also utilize the expression of a trained neural network to create art. I've also created many cartoons and illustrations (an alter-ego of sorts).
Ballpoint
I’m fascinated by fragmenting, crystallizing, and dissecting images—because, to me, this approach represents understanding a subject through many distinct perspectives, revealing it piece by piece like a living organism. Our composite conception of any object arises from myriad ways of seeing. I want to help people see what I see.
I make art. I made it for you by making it for me.
"Beauty is not just saying how someone or something looks"
-Maletsah Jones
"Beauty is neither a man nor a woman, But beauty is the living creatures around the world" -Maletsah Jones
Sculpture
Paper, fibers, plastic, and metals.
I have extensive experience working with native Dallas Blackland soil, jewelry, paper making, origami and kirigami.
I love making art as a commodity. I like making a ‘thing’—something you can hold, something that occupies a space.
"I made a thing!"
-Jason Crow
Photography
Nature, Portrait and Experimental
"There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you"
(Walt Whitman, 'To You' - 1856)
"The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth."
wisaawa-szymborska - 2005)
This natural world is more beautiful than than words can ever tell. "A picture is worth a thousand words"
"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
(-Joyce Kilmer - 1913)
There is such joy, pain and strange beauty in the world.
I want to capture that.
Paper Craft
For many years, every Sunday, I designed paper toys—meant for children to color and assemble—during a weekly story-time program.
It remains one of the most rewarding chapters of my life, and I continue to cherish those moments.
I enjoy working with children, and it was a real pleasure creating these templates—every Sunday—using only a ruler, pencil, and Sharpies.
Although I designed them with kids in mind, many parents and adult coworkers also wanted to make their own paper toys.
I really liked working with the kids to bring their artistic visions to fruition, building young self esteems and also exploring the creation of objects I designed with such fresh new minds.
Cartoons
My silliness is... ...um... well ...silly. A sense humor goes a long way. Hand-drawn cartoon images. My inspirations range from Robert Crumb to Dr. Seuss, Andy Kaufman to Charlie Kaufman, and I'm deadly serious about this silliness.
I laugh at the beautiful and horrible alike. I am a clown. I make it OK to laugh.
Too comfortable with a pen, perhaps...
I don't mind... (They could never make me mind!)
Graphic Design and Vector Imaging
I have many years of experience creating vector artwork using industry-standard tools, including Adobe Illustrator, Flash, and CorelDRAW. I use these programs to refine and enhance illustrations, delivering crisp, clean, high-quality results. I’ve also created a range of professional assets including logos, flyers, and other commercial graphics.
Unique Artistic Vision Through the use of AI
"The expression of the face balks account, But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face, It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists"
-Walt Whitman (I Sing the Body Electric - 1855)
"The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed."
(-William Gibson -1990)
I sing the body electric, but it's stifling.
i wish I was silent...
Whether I drew from my own images to train a neural network, explored style transfer, or simply prompted an image into being, the output remained what mattered most: beauty. I initiated the process, curated the results, and defined what constitutes beauty—and, by extension, art. I didn’t outsource the creative act; I mastered a new medium. General Artificial Intelligence doesn’t exist yet. What we have instead is sophisticated software—opaque, mechanized, and largely inscrutable. And still, I use it to make art.
"...For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure...
"Out of the cradle endlessly rocking
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive
(Walt Whitman - 1859)
...and while we stand in wonder it coolly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terrifying."
(-Rainer Maria Rilke - The First Elegy - 1926)
"A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding."
(William Gibson - Neuromancer - 1984)
This is not OK...
...It's too much,
but I wield it! (Willed it)
