Artist Statement

I’m a multi-disciplinary artist, inspired by visual patterns in nature. I create colorful, playful riffs off those patterns in my paintings, designs and dances.

I love looking at trees at dusk when they’re silhouetted against the sky; creating a million tiny windows for brilliant colors of light to bleed through. I love seeing footage of invertebrate life in the sea; colorful creatures with translucent skins, moving like water and swirling about the ocean floor. I love finding tiny, magical worlds growing up from the forest floor; mushrooms unfurling with amazing colors and lichen tracing intricate lines around tree branches. I love watching birds flock in the air; hundreds of individual birds, dressed alike, playing follow the leader and mesmerizing me with their collective movement.

In those moments, I’m completely dazzled and itching to somehow join the beauty before me. I want others to experience the intensity and delight of my inspiration when they see my work.

When I paint, I use bold color, deep space and playful composition to bring the patterns to life. When I dance, I embody some aspect of my inspiration. I give the pattern (or motion or rhythm) a new life in my body as I move and create choreography. When I design, I fold bits of what I see in nature into something tangible and usable. Often my designs are wearable, satisfying my desire to become part of the beauty I see.

With each piece I create, there’s a new opportunity for me to interact and play with the pattern ideas. That excites me. 

Bio

Naomi was raised in a family full of creative people, her earliest memories include making (and being encouraged to make) beautiful things any way she could. Childhood was a rich time of life that included lots of coloring, community theater, dance classes, talent competitions, school musicals, student art exhibitions, sewing and watching both of her parents pursue creative businesses out of their home.

In 2006, she earned her BFA from the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point in Art & Design with a minor in Dance, exhibiting and performing throughout her time there.

In her professional career, she has worked in web design, graphic design, dance performance and teaching and selling paintings she exhibits and through commissions. She can never just be working in one creative discipline and finds that each one feeds off of and into the others. When her work is at its best, (whether it's illustration, design, choreography, painting etc.) it is playful, colorful and intricate. Naomi's love of color, natural patterns and drama shines through in her work. Her sensitive observation of detail and pattern in natural subjects consistently draws viewers in for a closer look. She has exhibited in the Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest, completing many original works and commissioned pieces.

She shares a big yellow house with her forester husband, Clark, in Duluth.