Bridge Through Steel: The Face Stays Mine
The Q train over the bridge, the river flat below, and a profile I will not let you pin down.
Naomi Brooks
Based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Works in a style called Unflinching Figuration: confident figurative drawing, rich deep skin tones, bold flat colour grounds, the likeness withheld - cropped, turned or shadowed, poster-art graphic clarity.
Skyline Igniting Her: the bloom catches fire
The hair lifts into the light, and the sky answers back.
Shared Bloom Opposing: the sisters look away
Two profiles, one bloom between them - the likeness stays out, the connection stays in.
Rest Between Stations: the bloom holds her up
A night nurse on the bus home, eyes closed, the colour doing the work gravity cannot.
Wheel Suspended Tangerine: the face stays flat, the air blooms
A profile held against the Coney Island wheel, the likeness withheld, the colour spilling everywhere but the face.
Bowl Blooming Forward: Steam Carries the Colour
A noodle counter, a turned head, and the moment steam becomes brushwork.
Weather Becoming Hers: rain that refuses to stay grey
The umbrella holds a storm of colour instead of keeping it out.
Stride Blooming Cobalt: the bloom says more than the face
The runner is cut at the collarbone, and the cobalt bloom behind her does all the work the face would have done.
Page Turning Quiet: the bloom I keep coming back to
A woman reading on a stoop, the colour lifting off her into air—this is the fourth time I have painted this exact angle and I still do not know her name.
Wind Pulling Everything East: when the hair tells the story
The Staten Island ferry crossing became the portrait when I let the braids move.