"Set Me Down On A Cloud" Drawing

Jared Nathan Crane (b. 1987) is a visual artist based in Richmond, Virginia. His paintings and works on paper explore questions surrounding consciousness, memory, perception, and the metaphysical nature of reality.

Across his paintings and works on paper, Crane uses recognizable imagery and abstract forms to explore experiences that resist description—things that are felt, remembered, imagined, or sensed rather than simply seen. His forms can seem to emerge from or dissolve into their surroundings, creating spaces that are both tactile and illusory. The work explores how painting can evoke memory, sensation, consciousness, and other aspects of experience that cannot be pictured directly.

Crane's paintings balance deliberate construction with improvisation. He is interested in work that feels slightly odd—elusive, ambiguous, and sometimes unsettling—where beauty exists alongside a sense of strangeness. His process moves through cycles of strategy, improvisation, and reflection, allowing each painting to become a discovery rather than the execution of a predetermined image.

Crane received a BFA in Painting & Printmaking with a minor in Art History from VCUarts in 2012 and an MFA in Painting from CUNY Hunter College in 2015. He taught two-dimensional design and introductory drawing in the Art Foundations department at VCUarts for seven years and has also taught undergraduate painting and photography. He currently teaches visual art in Virginia.