Jamie’s goal as an artist is to capture nature’s inspiring moments and share them with others in her paintings. Her hope is that when people look at her artwork, they will be reminded of their own time spent outdoors. She wants people to get that feeling of joy and peace that she experiences while immersed in nature.

Wilke’s higher purpose as an artist is to enhance her personal connection to nature, make meaningful connections with people, and to help connect people with nature through her art.

Jamie Wilke’s artwork is impressionistic. She wants her art to be beautiful and peaceful, but also energetic and alive. She loves to make paintings that look realistic from a distance but abstract close-up. When she paints she strives to add a lot of excitement in addition to what she initially sees. She does this by deeply connecting with the subject matter and then using composition, value, color and depth to tell the story of what she sees and how she connects with it. Wilke allows herself to paint freely and loosely so that she paints only what speaks strongly to her when she puts her brush and paint on the canvas or paper. She feels that this natural enthusiasm that happens to her while she’s painting is what makes her work truly inspiring and powerful to those that view it.

Wilke grew up in the dairy farming countryside near Appleton, Wisconsin. When she wasn’t playing sports or recreating outside, she was drawing on paper and painting animals on rocks every chance she could get.

Jamie’s art training consisted of attending 4-H art workshops and competing at the Outagamie County Fair. She also took one watercolor class in college “just for fun” from watercolorist Mary Ann Beckwith while earning her Scientific & Technical Communication degree (Bachelor of Science) from Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan.