Press Archive – Naomi knocked back all the way to Florence prize
The Australian

by Corrie Perkin

ARTIST Nafisa Naomi knocked on the doors of 23 commercial galleries in Sydney and Melbourne two years ago to see if they might be interested in representing her work – and all 23 galleries knocked her back. “Sure, you go through moments of ‘Damn it, why couldn’t this happen to me?’, but I have a very philosophical· attitude towards life,” the Sydney-based artist said yesterday.

“I understand the gallery process and I suppose I’ve just continued to believe in my work. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.” Naomi’s self-belief has paid off, as she beat an international field of 600 artists to win the painting division of the Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art. Judged by a jury of international art curators and gallery directors, the prize carries no monetary reward (winners are presented with a gold medallion).

Its cachet is immense, however, and Naomi, 44, has already received offers from gallery dealers in New York, Paris, Milan and Calgary who are keen to promote her work. Naomi, a former medical student who ran her own fashion-business for 10 years, returned her schoolgirl passion for painting in 2000. The win, she said, “was a complete surprise”. “I didn’t have any expectations, so anything is a bonus,” she said.

Although not as famous as its Venice sibling, the Florence Biennale this year attracted nearly 20,000 visitors over nine days in early December.
Eight hundred and forty artists from 76 countries exhibited in a variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography and installation. Unlike Venice, where the artists are selected by their own nation’s curators or government arts bodies, Florence invites its own artists, and asks them to select their own work for display.

Australia’s 13 participating artists do not have the luxury of federal government funding, which this year included $2 million for Australia’s Venice Biennale campaign. Instead, they must fund their own travel, accommodation and freight costs. In Naomi’s case, she raised the $11,000 required taking on a portrait commission from a Sydney family. Naomi’s vivid prize-winning work is a four-panelled, six-metre mural depicting Australia’s wildflowers. Titled Regeneration, it depicts the floral transformation that occurs after a bushfire has ravaged the countryside.

“I’m not a flower painter by any means, but what interests me is that Australian flowers are not soft, they’re quite architectural looking,” Naomi said. “They seem very alien to the Europeans, who saw the work and said ‘Wow, are they really flowers? Do they really exist?’ ”

Arts – Page 12