The blue reaches you before she does.
A wide streak of cobalt, brushed fast and loose, trailing off the back of her head like she pulled it out of the air behind her. Only after that do you notice there is a woman running underneath it.
You never get her face, and that is the point
Naomi cuts the frame at her collarbone. No eyes, no expression, nothing to read. So instead of looking at a person, you look at her speed – and the speed is the cobalt, blooming out of her hair and turning into weather. As Valentina put it, the trailing bloom captivates with vibrant energy. It reads like you caught her mid-flight, half a second before she left the frame.
Look at where the colour starts. It never sits politely around the edges. It grows out of her – out of the thick black contour line, out of warm deep skin tones – against a flat two-colour ground with one simple city shape behind. That is Naomi’s whole way of working. She paints people as bursts of colour and refuses to make them stand still for you.
What it does to your morning
Hang it where you pass at speed – a hallway, the wall by the door, the gap beside the kitchen. It pushes forward. Rooms with this in them feel like they are going somewhere. People ask about it, and they ask fast.
Getting it up
Museum-grade archival matte paper, printed edge to edge with no white border, so the cobalt runs right to the corner. Non-reflective, which means a window opposite gives you the painting back instead of your own ceiling light. It arrives rolled in a tube, ready for a frame you already own – or pinned up bare, which suits the loose brushwork fine.
Portrait format. Most people take the 16×20 (41 x 51 cm); go 18×24 if the wall is wide. $29, $49 and $69 across the three sizes. Free shipping in the continental US, made to order, so nobody on your street has this one – allow up to ten business days before it heads out.
One honest thing
It is loud. Cobalt, warm skin, flat bold ground. If you want your walls quiet and beige, this will talk over them.
If you want the opposite, take it home. Or have a look at the rest of Naomi’s blooms first – and if you follow her, you will see the next one before the rest of us do.
One is a piece. Two is a set. Three is a collection.
Almost nobody stops at one. A second work by the same hand turns a wall into a pairing. A third turns it into something you chose rather than something you bought. There are 6 other works by Naomi Brooks available.
Tile Rising Ochre – Naomi Brooks | Digital Download$19
Weather Becoming Hers – Naomi Brooks | Fine Art Print Price range: $129 through $229
Tower Blooming Magenta – Naomi Brooks | Digital Download$19
Page Turning Quiet – Naomi Brooks | Fine Art Print Price range: $129 through $229
Wind Pulling Everything East – Naomi Brooks | Fine Art Print Price range: $129 through $229
Glow Before Closing – Naomi Brooks | Fine Art Print Price range: $29 through $69
