Jessica Lily, GWS, explores the emotional and symbolic language of plants, light, and place. With a background in both realism and abstraction, she creates intimate garden studies and immersive, large-scale botanical works as part of her ongoing Garden Portals series. Jessica often paints native plants or species, bridging the everyday with the sacred.

In Garden Portals, Lily offers botanical works as meditations on light, memory, and the terrain of womanhood. Blending realism with abstraction, each piece straddles softness and structure while inviting viewers into inner landscapes that are lush, unapologetic, and emotionally full. These florals reclaim space by holding a tension between dualities: shadow and light, too-muchness and grace, time and wisdom. They ask us to see both ourselves and the natural world with renewed compassion and reverence.

Lily's award-winning paintings have been featured in juried exhibitions Internationally and throughout the Southeast, and she is an active member of national and regional watercolor societies, and is a Signature Member of the Georgia Watercolor Society. In addition to exhibiting and selling her work, Jessica teaches both in-person and online workshops, where she is known for her supportive, insight-driven guidance that helps students build real skills and confidence.