Jessica Sarah Shapiro is an artist and educator whose improvisational art-making process creates a personal record of hyper-focus, play, overstimulation, repetition, chaos, and calm. Her work moves fluidly between pure abstraction and ambiguous objectivity, drawing on forms from nature, the figure, memory and dreams, and diagnostic imaging.

Shapiro comes from a family of artists spanning generations. Raised in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Pennsylvania, she carries a lifelong attachment to the natural world that runs through her work.She has been making art and sharing it with others for most of her life, and her practice has deepened through decades of teaching, mentoring, and raising a family. She most recently served for two years as an Artist in Residence with Artists in Public Schools (formerly CPS Lives).

She received her BA from Bard College and her MFA from the University of Chicago. She lives in Chicago and works from her studio at Spudnik Press in West Town.