In Conversation With Naomi Lisiki | Episode 36

 

 

Having had my childhood in the Caribbean, I would spend most of my days in nature. I always felt that one could create a connection, a deeper understanding and sense of the self through a liberation that nature can provide. I would feel an immense sense of freedom when swimming in the ocean. I knew about art and always enjoyed art classes growing up but I didn’t have the realization yet that it was my path. I think that my childhood in the Caribbean was about truly living and enjoying each moment there. Life was very simple and we spent most of our time in nature, these memories and experiences definitely still affect my work to this day.

When I moved to New York City in my early teens, I felt homesick. I didn’t speak english well and so I started looking for ways to express myself, looking for that, I started going to museums and young artist programs in the city, that I felt that art could become a way for me to get back to the core of who I was. Moving to New York was the defining point and start of my journey as an artist. The artist community here is incredible and inspiring.

 

 

 

From the start, my practice always had an element of introspectiveness. I always looked for ways to make a visual manifestation of my experiences, the transition of my life as a child in the Caribbean to now as a woman living and working in New York. I think that the notion of womanhood came naturally into my work. Painting was for me a way to explore and push forward the expectations of what abstraction could be. My initial aim was to express a sensation, to encapsulate the experience of living into the painting form. It was about how the creative process can coexist so closely with my body, that the experiences and changes that I went through as a woman throughout the years could also be intertwined with my creative practice. It is both a physical but also a psychological experience. That is why I never looked at a painting as only a visual object but as an experiential space. As I change and grow into the world, so does my work. I once worked around 8 months on a painting, I was an undergrad and after making that work my relationship to painting became clear to me. I remember going into the work with no plan or sketches, but in the process of making it I found a deep connection within myself, a connection beyond any notion of time and space. I was immersed into the work and I was not looking for final answers from it but to be in constant connection and conversation with truth rather than trying to define it. Notions of Spirituality and Philosophy also followed as the works developed and grew.

There is a quote by Socrates that says, “The winds themselves are invisible, yet what they do is manifest to us and we somehow feel their approach.” I find this sentence profound, as it points out to certain truths that can only be felt, therefore I feel that as an artist one of my missions is being able to express these feelings that do not have a static or specific form. It is about making a visual, to a certain degree, of truths and feelings that language cannot entirely encompass.

 

 

Yes, I see the creative process as a manifestation of a transformation. The concept of metamorphosis meant for me that the work was in constant shift and change. One painting will lead to the next painting, resulting in a body of works that feels like a “sample” of a specific moment in space and time that went beyond the frame of the painting. I always think of my work as a glimpse of a space that goes beyond my body, a landscape of emotions and of the mind. It becomes about making work that starts to express a knowledge of its own that you are constantly grappling to figure out. The most exciting moments are for me when you get to learn from your own work.

 

 

 

I think it really emerged from the fact that a lot of my first visual memories have started in nature. I always thought that nature had a language and knowledge of its own, and that relationship also developed in my work later on, where I feel that the paintings had a logic and truth of their own that I had to navigate and explore. So the ways in which nature operates and feeds into itself, from the effects that the moon has on ocean tides to the ways stars are born, these poetics are ideas and sensations that I like to explore in my works. All aspects of nature are interconnected and I think that our lives are connected in a similar way, so the question of how I can learn from that on both a spiritual and emotional level, is something that I keep in mind when working.

I am also inspired by visuals of nature. In my paintings I apply densely packed marks in vaguely symmetrical patterns, forming worlds of airy and atmospheric visions. In this way, I am able to express an “internal landscape”, which is expressive of the visuals of nature found in Guadeloupe but also in my living environment in New York. I am fascinated by all the textures that one may find, from the patterns of a leaf to the colors of sunset. My aim is to use the colors and shapes of these visual phenomena to express the state of my soul as I am painting.

 

 

At first I was looking at a lot of photographs and alternative printing processes as they really captured the visual ephemerality of memories and the sensation that I was looking to express in my works. The ways in which cyanotypes feel like shadows of a life, fossils of flora, or imprints on rocks. I always look for the textures, light and shapes that make up the memories of my childhood. It is a way to try and define this internal landscape of emotions. With my mother, who is Moroccan, we often visit family in Morocco. Dyeing fabric is also part of the art and culture there. They do indigo dyeing which I feel also has a photographic  effect. When painting, I think of the color of the soil and of the landscape in Morocco and Guadeloupe, there is so much warmth, movement and celebration in these colors. I think that the techniques instinctually developed from my memory of looking at all of these sources of inspiration and places of heritage with the present moment of making the works.

 

Naomi Lisiki, Touch of Time, 2024, oil on canvas, 81.3 × 81.3 cm (32 × 32 in)

 

When I start a new painting, sometimes I look at previous works for inspiration, or I push myself into a new idea if I become too comfortable in the way that I am working. It is both planned and instinctual. I like to work with small sketches that I paint on gessoed paper, they almost look like scans or prints. Then I move to larger scale works. But I prefer to allow myself a lot of freedom for discovery, the best moments are when I surprise myself with a new painting, when the painting reveals itself as I am making it.

 

 

I do sometimes write poetry and stories when working on paintings. Writing has always been present in my process but I have yet to share them. I like writing in the style of magical realism, pointing to aspects of the human experience that can feel both real and supernatural. The titles come instinctually, while looking at the work almost like writing the final line of a poem. I like to sometimes include titles both in French and English as both languages are important in my life. 

 

Naomi Lisiki in her studio,  © Naomi Lisiki

 

 

I think that I would like a studio visit with Joan Mitchell. I admire her paintings, especially her use of colors and mark making. Her work reminds me of landscapes, motifs of nature and are so expressive and vibrant. I would definitely learn from her feedback, or would just be honored that she got to experience my work.