Jaynie Gillman Crimmins is a New York City–based artist who transforms everyday materials into intricate, meditative constructions that reveal alternative narratives of consumption, memory, and care. Her work has been exhibited widely at venues including ART on PAPER NYC; the Sharjah Museum of Art during the Islamic Arts Festival (UAE); SPRING/BREAK Art Show; the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary (VA); Hunterdon Art Museum (NJ); Zuckerman Museum of Art (GA); and the Steinberg Museum of Art at LIU/Post (NY).
Crimmins earned a BS in Art Education from Buffalo State College and an MS in Art Education from the College of New Rochelle. She has been awarded residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, I-Park Foundation, and Vermont Studio Center.
She is represented by Thomas Deans Fine Art (Atlanta, GA) and also exhibits with Elza Kayal Gallery and Art Lives Here (NYC).
In Busywork, Crimmins reclaims the notion of “busywork” as a profound act of endurance and self-preservation. Through repetitive, labor-intensive gestures—shredding, sorting, rolling, and assembling—Crimmins transforms discarded materials into meditative constructions that assert presence amid chaos.
Often dismissed as meaningless or trivial, busywork becomes, in her hands, a means of grounding the body and mind during times of crisis, grief, and uncertainty. Each small, persistent motion reflects resilience, offering a quiet counterpoint to the political and emotional turbulence of our era.
Crimmins invites viewers to consider how acts of repetition can become acts of resistance—how the smallest gestures, accumulated over time, embody both survival and hope.
“My work dismantles and transforms images, words, and printed patterns from mass marketing catalogs, magazines, and security envelopes. Shredding these materials breaks down their physical and ascribe composition, allowing me to re-contextualize their original messages into personal, domestic, and cultural narratives.”
– Jaynie Crimmins, 2025
To learn more about artist Jaynie Crimmins, please click here.