Jessica Palmer studied Illustration at Kingston University. One day, in a life drawing class, an innovative tutor took the charcoal out of her hand, gave her a pair of scissors and said, ‘Cut it out!’ Her passion for papercutting was born. Her love of detail led her on to using a scalpel to 'draw', as with a pen or pencil. She is now a visiting artist in galleries and museums in London, Bath and Bristol, including the V & A and the National Portrait Gallery. She runs papercutting events linked to exhibitions, and she exhibits in London and the west of England. She has produced commissions, exhibition pieces and book illustrations in the United States.

Jessica exhibited at the Paper Made show in Summer 2014 at the Jamestown Art Center in Rhode Island, USA. Her paper sculpture "Liber-tea-belle", celebrating the Boston Tea Party through a fantastical depiction of a Georgian bust bearing a tea clipper wig, was the talking piece of the show. The papier-mache and paper piece traveled 3,000 miles and was snapped up by a buyer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Jessica also created "This Land is Our Land", a large paper cut depiction of American birds in a huge tree commissioned as a wedding gift for a New England couple involved in preserving wild bird habitats. Jessica is currently working on a series of cut paper illustrations for "Bistronomy" — a look at contemporary Paris bistros by Food and Wine and New York Times food writer Jane Sigal, to be published by Rizzoli in New York later in 2015.