Conversations with Jessica Yorko

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Yorko

Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m a self-taught painter and mixed media artist with more than 30 years’ experience.

Having won several youth art competitions while growing up in Florida, I continued creating fine art paintings, marketing materials and graphic elements for event and organizational promotions after moving to Michigan in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, I had the pleasure of working with other Michigan-based artists to design and paint several outdoor neighborhood murals and I created a handful of indoor, landscape-based murals.
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I began marketing my fine art paintings and limited edition prints for sale in 2022. That year, I was commissioned to create a custom piece commemorating the Art of Aquarius event hosted by The Artist’s Umbrella (AU) in Lansing. Later that year I co-hosted a highly successful pop-up gallery show with AU and began selling my work at the The Gold Mine Shop in Lansing while also booking gallery exhibitions.
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Throughout 2022, I established exhibition and retail partnerships with several Lansing-based locations, including the Michigan Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Fledge, Capital Hippie and Veg Head. From December 2022 through January 2023, my work was featured in an invited artist exhibition at Reach Studio Art Center in Lansing.
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In 2024, my painting “Autumn Shine” was recognized with the ACWL Nuveen Award in a Juried Exhibition in Whitehall, Michigan, and I produced custom-based fine art pieces for Michigan collectors.
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Having worked in the fields of community development, environmental science and public health while developing my artistic voice and style, my paintings and mixed media pieces often reflect the beauty and interconnectedness of nature and humanity.

In 2025, I’ll be opening a shop in Montague, Michigan with another Michigan-based artist, Julie Murphy.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Over the past few years, I’ve lost some people who were very important to me. I had to feel those heavy emotions of grief and work through them.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My fine art painting style blends elements of pointillism, magical realism and expressionism to create vibrant, contemporary acrylic and mixed-media artwork.

I specialize in boldly colored nature-inspired acrylic and mixed media paintings.

I’m most proud of my collaborations.

Intensity of hues and impeccable composition set my work apart.

How do you think about luck?
We either win or we learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yorkoart.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/jessicayorko
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/YorkoArt
• LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/jessicayorko