Naomi’s  most recent work has taken her in new interpretive and technical  directions. Still inspired by landscapes, she has developed a more  minimalist (but no less complex) palate that allows her to confront  shadow and light in new ways. Where her earlier work often draws on  clouds, mists, filtered light and soft edges, Naomi’s recent  explorations offer sharp edges and definitive shapes.  These new works focus on  snowy mountainscapes featuring stark contrasts of  the white snow and rocks, contrasts that we often see at the extremes of the  day—sunrise and sunset. 

At  the same time, these new works invite the artist and the viewer to  engage with the primary challenge of painting—creating a  three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface. Naomi employs  swaths of what appear at a distance to be flat, monochromatic surfaces  to evoke the mystery and majesty of solid mountain peaks and crevasses  lit by equally flat light. Closer inspection reveals detailed brushwork  and layered paint surfaces, carefully and meticulously applied. Like a  monumental mountainside at sunset, Naomi’s new work offers starkly  contrasting fields of blacks, greys and whites built of the smallest of  individual shadows. Some viewers have noted the similarity of these new  works to Chinese or Japanese calligraphy. The shadowed shapes can evoke  calligraphic figures, but the meaning is nature’s own, created by light  and shadow.