Hilke was born and grew up in Germany near the Danish border. From 1983 to 1990 she studied at the College of Art and Architecture in Kiel, Germany. After working as an architect for a few years she moved to Scotland and concentrated on art, working in three types of media: printing, painting and ceramics (reliefs). Hilke lives with her family in a small village near St Andrews. Here she shares a studio with her husband, containing a big relief printing press, where they print all their distinctive linocuts and woodcuts. The ceramic reliefs are reproduced with a plaster cast and hand glazed individually before firing the tiles on high temperature. All copies are numbered and signed. ‘My pictures show the life and landscape around me, translated into colour, pattern and simplified bold shapes, set in an abstracted space. I enjoy working out how to combine these elements and developing new ideas. Inspiration comes especially from early 20th century art, ‘primitive’ art, contemporary design and nature’.