Jess entered the racing industry in her home village of Lambourn, rode as a professional National Hunt jockey for six years and on retirement from race riding, attended the Byam Shaw School of Art in London, graduating with distinction. 

In the 1990s Jess began work with the Department of Palaeontology of the Natural History Museum, London, making precision fossil drawings of Baryonyx Walkeri for their archives and publication. This association continued for over ten years on various projects including the Dinobird Exhibition, a collaboration between the Natural History Museums of London and China.

Jess left London to continue painting the wilder fringes of Wales and Scotland before a sojourn in Yorkshire brought her back into close contact with horses. Dogs, cows, pigs, and other animals entered the equation and her vision expanded to include work resulting in bronzes of these other beings. Now settled in West Wales for some years with various rescue animals, her work is a daily record of the distilled moments of this shared existence, which can be seen in galleries and collections worldwide.