JCKINS is a contemporary American painter and multimedia artist based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A self-taught artist who began painting at the age of five, Wilkins chose apprenticeship and independent study over formal art school, despite being accepted. He has been painting and selling his work for more than 25 years.
JCKINS is collected widely, including public and private acquisitions. Museum presentations in multiple juried exhibitions for the West Michigan Area Show held by The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts; (2001, 2002, 2003, 2005) as well as two monographic exhibitions at private galleries . He also founded the Printmaking Biennial ( South Street Print Fest) at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.
Primarily known for painting, JCKINS works in layered mixed media using oil paint, acrylic, charcoal, graphite, ink, pastels, and oil pastels. His practice extends beyond painting into sculpture, installation, jewelry, ceramics and printmaking, often using his paintings as conceptual and visual foundations for these expanded forms JCKINS compositions are built through dense impasto and assertive linework. Figures emerge and dissolve within a field of layered texture, creating a sense of movement, memory, and psychological depth. The work suggests tension between the individual and the collective—an environment where forms are simultaneously born, obscured, and redefined.