
Nöelle Overturf
There are faces behind those highly engaging social media accounts of the Fort Worth neighborhoods we love — Near Southside, River East, River District, etc. Whether we reside in these areas of town or not, a good city dweller should occasionally venture outside their bubble and check out what the rest of the city has to offer — and posts about an area’s best shops, venues, bars, and restaurants do a decent job of tickling locals’ wanderlust for these districts. But, like the person behind a radio voice, one wonders who’s pushing this massively appealing content.
For the River District, that person is Nöelle Overturf — yes with the diaresis over the “o” — who also has an Instagram account devoted to her passion: painting. A click on her page will treat you to subdued strokes of color with patches of vibrancy that flood her canvases. Yet, what might seem like a smattering of watercolors (something akin to the chaos of a Jackson Pollock), there’s a measured and detailed approach to her distinctive paintings, something that would be difficult to replicate.
“My aesthetic is always evolving,” Nöelle says. “I’m always learning new things and just trying to experiment with different colors and mediums and paints. I love working with colors. You look at my art, and you’ll notice I love putting colors together that you wouldn’t normally see.”
Growing up in Glen Rose — a small town whose claim to fame is the dinosaur tracks found in the aptly titled Dinosaur Valley State Park — Nöelle and her husband, Zach Overturf, moved to Fort Worth soon after graduating from Stephen F. Austin University, where she studied nutrition and dietetics.
“I do nothing with that right now,” Nöelle jokes.
Once in the Fort, she quickly became an employee of the Bass Companies and began dabbling in home renovation as she and her husband moved around different areas of the city. After four years, Nöelle left her job at Bass Companies and pursued entrepreneurship with Zach, who is the broker of LEAD Property Management. The couple eventually started a family, and, now, Nöelle must navigate being a mom, artist, social media coordinator, and entrepreneur. Yet, this doesn’t stop her from pursuing her passion every day.
“I mostly paint during nap times and that’s usually in the afternoon. I have a two-year-old, so it’s kind of hit or miss, but my family knows that art is an outlet for me and so they try to make time for me to just kind of go in my little office/studio and just do my thing. It’s just kind of a really cool escape.”
Since a day doesn’t go by without Nöelle picking up her brush, she sees her painting as a chronicle of her life.
“I decided to create an art Instagram, kind of as a diary for myself,” Nöelle says. “I decided to just put it out there after I became a mom, and that’s kind of where I am right now. The art is all over the map, but it’s been really a beautiful story.”
You can follow Nöelle Overturf on Instagram @noellegrace_designs