​

  Jacqueline Overby (b. 1991, San Antonio, TX) earned her BFA from Texas StateUniversity in 2016. A multi-disciplinary artist, Overby began as an oil painter and has since moved towards more performative and sculptural efforts, most recently delving into the social practice realm. Jacqueline currently lives and works in Austin and San Marcos, TX.

As a progression, she is currently working on expanding her practice with abstracted soft sculpture and needle felted forms. Overby takes inspiration from childhood cartoon aesthetic, pop cultural standards and her experiences with body dysmorphia. She is interested in the feminine, the masculine, and the non-binary and their relation to exaggerated geometric form, societal expectations and sexual innuendo. Some of the allegories in the work touch on the conversations between the comforts of childhood toys and the traumas of adulthood as it relates to nostalgia and a yearning for a lost innocence.

​

  A large portion of her practice serves to process her own issues with mental health, self-image, sexual desires and trauma. Being a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, her needle felting process of repeatedly stabbing fibers back into themselves serves as a way to meditate and heal while confronting various intrusive thoughts with a sense of humor. Exhibiting bright venomous hues, not unlike what poisonous animals use to ward off predators, she is interested in the role that color and shape play in the psychological response to a piece.

​

In 2020, Overby founded MotherShip Studios with business partner Courtney Peterson and has since focused on developing the community and constructing studios in the space located in San Marcos, Texas. The MotherShip mission goal is to strengthen the central Texas art scene by offering affordable studios and building a community network in which artists can thrive together.

​

  With the founding of MotherShip Studios, Overby has begun to look at her efforts through the lens of social practice. Focused on community building and providing a space where there previously was none, she has put significant effort into learning how to manage and produce a creative space that serves its artists first. Learning drafting, carpentry and general construction, Jacqueline Overby and Courtney Peterson completed construction on their first large scale studio in Fall 2021.  Their efforts are currently focused on fundraising to build out more studios in the warehouse they occupy in San Marcos, TX.

​

Most recently the pair have begun another initiative called Blast Suppers, hosted at a different location every month. An evolving effort, the monthly potluck aims to provide a community gathering point where the Austin creative community can come together and rebuild the networks of support that we have lost throughout the pandemic.

​

​