Jessica Costa (São Paulo, Brazil, 1988) lives and works in São Paulo. Her career began with more than a decade devoted to the fashion industry. Today, her practice centers on tapestry, with a particular focus on hand-tufting (a process in which she uses electric and pneumatic tufting guns on a fabric base) to create three-dimensional surfaces in natural wool.
The artist "paints with threads," exploring the pictorial possibilities that arise from the dialogue between handcraft and machine production. Her pieces use color gradients to create the illusion of depth and relief. Her organic, colorful compositions engage with space, and some works take the form of site-specific interventions in architectural corners and interstitial spaces. Costa draws on medieval tapestry and the Arts & Crafts movement, and her work alternates between abstraction and references to fragments of the human body. In series such as Sobejos, she starts from the frame (a historical symbol of the containment and legitimation of the artwork) to construct visual narratives that grow beyond its limits: what begins as a measured gesture expands into voluminous forms, invading the wall with the soft, sculptural presence of a "soft sculpture."
Costa graduated in Fashion Design from Faculdade Santa Marcelina (2012), trained in Textile Process Technology at SENAI (2017), and studied Knitting and Textile Design at Knit-1 in Brighton (United Kingdom, 2015), in addition to taking courses at Parque Lage and MAM-SP. In 2023, she joined Zipper Galeria's roster of represented artists, where she held the solo exhibition Na Altura dos Olhos (2024). In 2025, she was a finalist for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, with a work exhibited at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and for The Hopper Prize. She was also a finalist for the 14º Prêmio Garimpo Dasartes (2024). Her group exhibitions include Inconformadas, at Galeria Claraboia (São Paulo, 2026, curated by Ana Avelar); Os Coloristas estão chegando, at MAC-Niterói (2024); Pile Paragons, at TuftCon (Philadelphia, 2023); and Desnorteando, at Smallbany Gallery (New York, 2022). Alongside her artistic practice, she works as a mentor and educator in the field of handmade textile arts.