Natashya Jacob is a Chicago-based painter working primarily with oil paints and pastels. Her work blends expressive, representational, and surreal styles, often creating scenes that feel familiar yet infused with a sense of imagination. She paints interiors, still lifes, and animals, exploring storytelling, personal revelations, and the emotional currents of transformation and growth.

Natashya was born in the United Arab Emirates to Sri Lankan parents and immigrated to the United States at age eleven. This experience shaped her understanding of change, adaptability, and resilience, informing an ongoing exploration of identity, belonging, and inner stability.

A self-taught artist, her work investigates the human psyche, spirituality, and the idea of home as something built from within. She has completed dozens of private commissions, produced a large-scale brand project for National Minority Health Month spanning watercolor and digital assets, exhibited in numerous group shows across Chicago, and presented her first solo booth at the Bucktown Arts Fest in 2024.

For more of Natashya’s artwork, process, and inspirations - please check out her Instagram.