Art by Knives

Art by Knives 📍STL artist:
using multi-exposure photography to border on the abstract & surreal All rates are flat so you know exactly what you are paying for!

A venture created by Jake Messer: a self-taught designer with a preference for minimalist work. Messer, literally meaning 'knife' in German, makes sure that he has the most affordable pricing with quick turnaround. All files come with a high-resolution PDF and PNG/JPEG sent through email. Look through Knife Collective's photo albums for examples of his work!

"ask", February 2026🧢 ☀️: a lot to dissect on this one, so i'm gonna leave it up to interpretation-knives 🔪
02/02/2026

"ask", February 2026

🧢 ☀️: a lot to dissect on this one, so i'm gonna leave it up to interpretation

-knives 🔪

"thinking, as it ever were", January 2026🧢 ☀️: very proud of the time I spent on this piece. thoughts sprawled from an a...
02/01/2026

"thinking, as it ever were", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: very proud of the time I spent on this piece.

thoughts sprawled from an airport. an ingenue in the control tower.

starting, stopping, glitching. falling from the air

some may even land safely to their destinations. depends on the day. ✈️

-knives 🔪

"a lesson in primary colors", January 2026🧢 ☀️: yellow. blue. red. sometimes you just need to get back to basics. return...
01/31/2026

"a lesson in primary colors", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: yellow. blue. red.

sometimes you just need to get back to basics. return to form. prove to yourself you remember what it's like to be human. (but that implies you've known it before.)

how lovely it is to know what these are. to see them. to remember.

-knives 🔪

"coldwater creek transmissions and evidence", January 2026🧢 ☀️: i made these like flowers at the grave of all who perish...
01/30/2026

"coldwater creek transmissions and evidence", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: i made these like flowers at the grave of all who perished from the poison. i had a quandary of life beyond the life and thought it made no difference. i was here. in this moment.

so brave. so willing. so eager.
so brave. so willing. so eager.
.. in spite of the life already lived.

what's the difference between optimism and stupidness? the end result i suppose.

but when we treat death as the inevitable, maybe we will, for once, truly live without our own incurred timidness.

what a lovely thought.

-knives 🔪

"coldwater creek", January 2026🧢 ☀️: "Living near St. Louis's Coldwater Creek during childhood is linked to a significan...
01/29/2026

"coldwater creek", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: "Living near St. Louis's Coldwater Creek during childhood is linked to a significantly higher risk of cancer due to radioactive waste from WWII nuclear weapons production contaminating the waterway. A 2025 study showed that those living within one kilometer of the creek have a 44% higher risk of developing cancer."

short term gain and long term consequences. we often think people will reap what they sow, yet we don't calculate, or maybe even care about, the additional grief myopic actions have on people downstream (pun intended)

it sounds dystopian, but it's not. it's real, and it's here.

-knives 🔪

"try our new air dryer", January 2026🧢 ☀️: i'm tired 😴 -knives 🔪
01/29/2026

"try our new air dryer", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: i'm tired 😴

-knives 🔪

"peek", January 2026🧢 ☀️: i'm very proud of this piece and my continued willingness to experiment. sitting in the gut fe...
01/27/2026

"peek", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: i'm very proud of this piece and my continued willingness to experiment. sitting in the gut feeling of creation is necessary.

coming back to STL, you get met with everything that was. it's yours to sort, and there's an odd beauty and frustration in that.

so many things can be a distraction. i try to keep peeking at the peak, while remaining responding and content to the now. goal attainment isn't the end but rather asking "am i aligned more than i was the day before?

and the answer is yes. and the enlightenment to understand was hard earned. the new way coming with its own puzzling answers.

"beer can candle", January 2026🧢 ☀️: a candle created from a beer can sits at the base of a large cross. overlaid is ano...
01/26/2026

"beer can candle", January 2026

🧢 ☀️: a candle created from a beer can sits at the base of a large cross. overlaid is another stylized image to get all of the cross in one photo.

- knives 🔪

"a real barn burner" × variations, January 2026🧢 ☀️: as it's named, so it is. also, i'm back in MO. -knives 🔪
01/24/2026

"a real barn burner" × variations, January 2026

🧢 ☀️: as it's named, so it is. also, i'm back in MO.

-knives 🔪

"incidental candles", January 2025🧢 ☀️: "a fire ya say? i don't know. all i see is smoke, Fredrick.""trust me, we haven'...
01/22/2026

"incidental candles", January 2025

🧢 ☀️: "a fire ya say? i don't know. all i see is smoke, Fredrick."

"trust me, we haven't gotten rain for a long time"

"let's get the scoop.... but you're makin' dinner if it's nothin'."

-knives 🔪

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Cherokee St
St. Louis, MO
63118

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