ARTIST STATEMENT
I create paper collages on wood panels.
My process starts with selecting high-quality art prints, cutting them out, arranging and glueing them onto a wood panel.
I create detailed and colourful portraits. My work explores inspiring public figures, quotes from well-known art and my own photographed subjects.
I’m deeply influenced by women who have challenged the status quo; changemakers who have accomplished inspiring achievements. I like to give them the spotlight they deserve and to provoke conversations about feminism and female empowerment. I aspire for beauty, harmony and balance to convey a nourishing aesthetic pleasure. Working with other artists’ art as my palette enables me to connect deeply with the art that I love while finding my own visual voice in the process. In other words; I express myself through colour, pattern and texture by quoting art that is meaningful to me.
ARTIST BIO
Naomi is a Middle-Eastern-born, New Zealand-based artist. Her current work is a series of vibrant and detailed collage portraits, interlacing layers of references from a wide spectrum of art genres and eras. She is passionate about exploring the female gaze and probing traditional gender roles. Naomi holds a degree in Art History and is a self-taught artist. She has been involved in creative education for many years, currently running collage workshops and events in the community. In 2015 she received an award for her self-portrait 'Dona Nobis Pacem' and in 2020, held a solo exhibition; 'Women of Valour', at Studio One Toi Tu, Ponsonby, Auckland.