About Naomi
Naomi began painting actively in 2009. Over the course of the past decade, she has come to focus on representational and abstract landscapes. While some of her images are taken from photographs, others are created from her imagination. Naomi has exhibited in a number of galleries and other venues in the St. Louis area. In addition, her work has been shown in galleries in St. Louis, Missouri, Louisville, Kentucky, and overseas in Lyon, France. Naomi’s paintings are held in private collections across the United States as well as in collections in the Netherlands, Canada, England and Italy.
Naomi often works in saturated colors and many of her works, some of which have had a special resonance for interior designers and decorators. While she considers her work fine art, Naomi is not doctrinaire about how it is viewed or appreciated. She welcomes the opportunity to reach viewers in a home or a gallery and has worked closely with clients on commissioned paintings.
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 mountain scapes 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.
Naomi has had an active interest in the arts since her childhood but has pursued a varied professional life. She holds a BA in History and Russian Area Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and speaks French. Her wide-ranging interests and training allowed Naomi to work prior to 2009 in a number of fields including web design, political consultancy and ESL education. Naomi is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, where she lives with her husband.
Comments about Naomi's work
"…delicious and interesting…they bring a state of extreme peace."
“Excellent use of such vibrant colors…love the texture!”
“There is a certain peacefulness about her work that captivates and soothes at the same time.”
“Each art piece she creates is seriously one of a kind! Amazing! Her art is a breath of fresh air.” “Exquisitely charismatic.”
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Selected Exhibitions
2013-2022 Solo show, St. Louis Spine and Health, St. Louis, MO
2019 Contemporary Art Museum Open Studios, St. Louis, MO
2016 Contemporary Art Museum Open Studios, St. Louis, MO
2015 Group show, Serendipity Gallery, St. Louis, MO
2015 Contemporary Art Museum Open Studios, St. Louis, MO
2014 Group show, Craft Gallery, Louisville, KY
2013 Group show, Webster House Galleries, St. Louis, MO
2012 Solo show, Third Degree Glass Factory, St. Louis, MO
2011 Group Show Express Scripts, St. Louis, MO
2011 Group show, The Tavern of Fine Arts, St. Louis, MO
2011 Group show, Give into the Groove benefit concert, Lexington, KY
2011 Group show, The Gallery at the Studio, St. Louis, MO
2011 Group show, Let Them Eat Art, St. Louis, MO
2010 Solo Show, Year One: A Retrospective, The Soulard Coffee Garden, St. Louis, MO
2010 Solo Show, Finger painting, Urban Eats Cafe and Artist Collective, St. Louis, MO
2010 Group show, St. Louis-Lyon Sister Cities Group Show, Clayton, MO and Lyon France
2010 Contemporary Art Museum Open Studios, St. Louis, MO
2009 Group show, Riff Raff's Halloween Art Show, Koken Art Factory, St. Louis, MO
2009 Group show, Intimate Distance Art Show, The Syndicate Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Collections
More than 140 works held in private collections throughout the United States as well as in Canada, England, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Commissions
More than ten commissioned works created from 2013-2021 for collectors in St. Louis, San Francisco, and Miami.
Artist talks
2021 Artist talk to residents, 3 McNight Place Memory Care, St. Louis, Missouri
Media
2022 Interview with VoyageSTL Magazine
https://voyagestl.com/interview/rising-stars-meet-naomi-silver-of-university-city/
2013 Interview with St. Louis Magazine
https://www.stlmag.com/culture/Watching-Artist-Naomi-Silver-PaintWithout-Brushes/
Education
1987 BA in History and Russian Area Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
