When Jacques Moeder fractured his pelvis skiing through the trees below Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s Ripper Chair on March 11, 2024, his pain, fear and disappointment were excruciating.

Two years later, these moments have become part of a 12-piece gallery at the Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre (RVAC) this winter. The 38-year-old local painter from Strasbourg, France, has used acrylic, chalk, bark and even his own ski jacket to make sense of his emotional journey recovering from his injury.

After being sighted by other skiers 100 metres from the chairlift on Mount Mackenzie, and extracted by ski patrol, Moeder found himself bedridden at the Queen Victoria Hospital.

“I realized I would not be home that evening,” he recounted. “The doctors told me it would be 12 weeks — so a good time for painting.”

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Moeder, whose artist name is Jah-ckô, and who since eight or nine years old has had a knack for caricature, comics and portraiture, had never publicly displayed his work. But he asked friends to bring his art supplies to the hospital bed so he could put his flurry of emotions to paper, drawing on his artistic inspirations from cartoonist Manu Larcenet, filmmaker Michel Gondry, sculptor Jean Tinguely, Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki, and more.

By the time he walked out later that year, he was ready to paint a full series depicting his crash, emotional rollercoaster and recovery. And having kept his artistry out of the public eye for decades, Jah-ckô decided that “after this time, I should not (just) keep it in my sketchbook.” When he contacted RVAC about housing his series, the answer was a resounding yes.

“This was such a big step for me,” he said, describing it as an “interesting feeling to see my art hanging, with proper light.”

Until January, after spending months painting and crafting, Jah-ckô hadn’t even had enough space in his home to put up all 12 instalments on his walls.

Now, his Story of a Crash collection on display in the Sophie Atkinson Gallery since Jan. 8 has taken viewers on a chronological journey from the moments Jah-ckô was getting dressed to ski that fateful winter day, to his safe arrival and peace of mind at the hospital.

“I actually invite the person (watching) to come and help me,” he explained.

Along with fixed paintings and the original jacket, helmet and goggles he wore during the crash, two interactive canvases allow visitors to rewind his tree collision and the moment of relief as help arrived. Jah-ckô said these components that people can touch and “break the fourth wall” with have brought a lot of positive feedback from gallerygoers.

For Story of a Crash as a whole, “I think it’s about the five steps of grief,” he summed up, referring to the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. That said, there were other emotions he experienced, too.

Feeling blessed for three other skiers to have come to his aid, at a time when Jah-ckô feared he’d die alone in the snow, he commemorated them by painting the hands and wings of a guardian angel bringing their group to the rescue. Jah-ckô remains grateful to them, as well as to the resort’s ski patrol.

“The luck I got was being so close to the chairlift,” he reflected, describing being “really happy to get off the mountain.”

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In an athletic town where numerous locals have lived through ski, snowboard and mountain bike crashes, Jah-ckô hopes others can find solace in his exhibit, and use it to make sense of their own emotions, from injury to recovery.

“I really feel that all of this helped me to recover,” he said. “I think I recovered really well because I accepted my trauma and did something with it.”

Jah-ckô’s exhibit will remain on display at RVAC until Sunday, Feb. 8.

Though these pieces aren’t for sale — “if someone wanted to buy one, it would be like ripping a page out of a book” – he’s eager to find more opportunities to showcase them, including in other B.C. mountain towns.

“Everywhere where there’s a ski resort, this could be an exhibit,” reasoned Jah-ckô, who’s continued skiing himself the last two winters.