Jessica Winters is an Inuk from the community of Makkovik, Nunatsiavut. In December 2018, Jessica became the first in her family to graduate university, with an undergraduate degree in Biology of Ecology and Conservation. Jessica has many interests in addition to biology and conversation, such as her love and passion for arts and crafts. Although not professionally trained in the arts, Jessica has grown up completely immersed in arts and crafts, surrounded by many established artists and craftspeople in her family. During her final semester of university, she challenged herself to use her talents as an artist to financially support herself through her final months of school in order to graduate.
Jessica typically works with acrylic paints and seal skin, but she also explores with block-printing, and she has facilitated workshops with all three artforms. Under the mentorship of Dr. Heather Igloliorte, Jessica curated an exhibition for renowned Inuit carver Billy Gauthier, which opened in St. John’s at The Rooms in May of 2019. In the summer of 2020, Jessica led a group of Makkovik youth to create a community mural, a project funded by the Nunatsiavut Government’s Department of Education and Economic Development, with the dual purposes of creating community art and training youth in artistic techniques.