Expressive Colour – Abstract Painting by Naomi Clark

Naomi Clark’s abstract oil paintings are constructed with bold and vibrant colors, organic forms, and gestural brushstrokes that convey powerful emotions. Importantly, Clark’s approach to abstract painting surpasses the boundaries of the canvas as she has also painted all sorts of textiles and found objects, including wool blankets, scarves, pillows, and dresses, placing them in breathtaking natural settings or transforming them into functional objects.

Nowadays based in Brooklyn, Naomi was born in Denver, CO, and studied painting at Pratt Institute, in New York City. After receiving her MFA also at Pratt, Clark co-founded Fort Makers, an artistic collective made up of four creatives that pull inspiration from Bauhaus and focus on functional and interactive art. Through this collective Naomi has created innovative furniture, lighting, and tableware designs. Next to these functional objects, Naomi has made painting her favorite medium and, over the years, she has also created interactive temporary installations where painted textiles take center stage. The ephemeral existence of such projects is meticulously documented by the photos and videos Clark takes of them. Clark’s experimental work has received recognition as her set designs have been shown at MoMA PS1 and Fort Maker’s installations have been displayed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art.

In her oil paintings, Clark often works in series revolving around one color, such as yellow or blue, which she explores through different curved forms that give life to irregular yet balanced patterns. Inspired by the legacy of seminal Abstract Expressionist artists like Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchel, Clark’s work conveys different layers of emotion through the intuitive use of bold colors and traces that populate her single or multi-panel works.

Without a doubt, Clark is part of a generation of young artists that are reinventing the medium of painting both through the use of traditional supports, like the canvas, and by experimenting with different ways of transforming painting into an interactive experience that involves us, the viewers, every step of the way.

“My practice is punctuated with large paintings and projects influenced by landscape, scale, and color.” – Naomi Clark

naomi-clark.com

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