Fort Visits with Naomi Clark

QWhat do you do to prepare to paint?

AI really think all my waking hours are spent preparing to paint. I want my art to be made from a clear and healthy mind. Keeping the brain a good soil for thoughts to form in is important. That is a very macro answer. It's the large picture stuff, then also the minutiae leading up the actual act itself. I have to have some clear time in my schedule which is increasingly hard these days. I think at least 1.5 hours. Sometimes it happens in steps, looking at the work I've started one day and then acting on it the next.

A close-up arrangement of paint brushes with blue handles and silver metal ferrules, many visibly stained with multicolored paint, hanging against a light background.

An artist's studio workspace with three colorful abstract paintings hanging on a white wall above a wooden worktable covered with art supplies, including a notebook, paintbrushes, a spray can, and a paint-splattered towel.

QHow do you know when a painting is finished?

AThere is just a resolution. A decision that all the shapes and strokes that I have placed on the canvas are in the exact perfect spot. It's very particular to my eye, but to sum it up, a balance and resolution is presented that I find pleasing.

A collage-style promotional graphic with a pink border and a yellow oval in the center reading 'FOR VISITS.' The top inset shows a colorful art studio with abstract paintings, stools, and a chair.

QDo you listen to music when you work? What are you listening to right now?

AI love finding a great song and putting on song radio on spotify. The last three I did were:

Three Spotify playlist cover tiles arranged on a solid green background. The top card is red and reads 'What Are You' with artist text 'Room Clark'.

Three framed abstract art prints displayed side-by-side on a solid coral red background. The left print features intricate black wireframe mushroom-like structures on a white background.

QCurrent inspirations?

AWell, we just saw Ruth Asawa and Henry Taylor. I've always been a huge Taylor fan. I also teach about Julie Mehretu as the first project of the year for my classes and I love what she has been doing with abstraction and depth.

QWhen did you first learn about abstract painting and did you feel a connection to it right away?

AI began painting abstractly when I was a BFA student in Colorado, however it was from an intuitive space rather than a studied space. My first active memory about abstraction wasn't until graduate school at Pratt. We had an assignment to go to the Met and the abstract painting I remember connecting with most was by Clyfford Still, who now has a big museum in none other than Denver.

An abstract art gallery scene with several large paintings in red, yellow, black, and white tones hanging on white walls. A person sits on a bench in the foreground on a glossy red floor.

A collage showing several handmade ceramic vessels, including a small yellow and blue handled dish, a yellow and blue patterned bowl, a pink pot, a blue and green vase, and a red pot, arranged on a tabletop. A central yellow oval reads 'For Visits'.

QWhat is your Aha! moment of becoming an abstract painter?

AI think the discovery that abstraction, the act of it, the study of it, strengthens intuition. My attraction to it has always felt very natural and strongly intuitive but it was hard for me to understand why for so many many years.

A woman in a blue fleece sweater holds a colorful abstract sculpture made of layered, textured paper or fabric pieces in red, blue, green, yellow, and white in an indoor studio space.

A woman in a floral apron stands in the doorway of a white shed waving, with two colorful paintings leaning against the wall and a large coral 'For Visits' text overlay on a light blue background.

QTell us about what you're currently working on. Any exciting new projects?

AI have some very exciting work for Fort Makers that is a continuation of The Blanket Project, our first collaboration together in 2009. I'm making a new series of Quilt Paintings coming out this winter. I also have a textile collection that just launched on my website, and I'm working on an ongoing print series. Plus, I have some sculpture works that will be shown in the near future with VSOP projects.

QYou’ve worked at quite large scales for some projects over the years, what do you love most about working big?

AI just feel right when it's big. Large scale work is inherently more immersive and the viewer can easily enter and become part of the work, like being surrounded by nature.

An aerial view of a large spiral arrangement of colorful blankets laid out on a green park lawn next to a body of water, with small groups of people standing and sitting around it.

A collage-style promotional graphic with four rounded photo panels around a large yellow oval in the center reading 'FOR VISITS.' The panels show an interior room with a lavender door and framed art, a close-up of a pink abstract painting with a horseshoe, a colorful abstract painting on a wall, and a wooden table with art supplies and a pink mug.

QTell us about your perfect day?

AWell, it was yesterday! I got up early, went to a work out class, when to a food festival, then met you guys at the Whitney! Then I went to one of the Korean spas in Queens. I also love the days when I have prepared an Action Painting and I take it to the beach in the summer. Or some of the late fall days when it is warm enough to go to the sound and paint for an hour.

Days spent in nature. Days spent in the studio. Days spent with loved ones. Hard work days that feel satisfying at the end of the day.

A minimalist black line art graphic on a pale mint green background, featuring abstract icons including maple leaves, a paint palette and brush, a zigzag labeled WHITNEY, a dumbbell, a walking person, trees, and a station sign reading Flushing-Main Street Station with the number 7.

A long rectangular textile laid out on a sandy beach, featuring an abstract pattern of blue, black, and white brushstrokes. The background shows the ocean under a cloudy, overcast sky.

QTell us about your body of work called “Action Paintings”? You pose your paintings on the beach near your house?

AMy work with Action Painting emphasizes the action, gesture and movement of the work. When I float works in the ocean for example, the movement and form of the painting come alive in a new way. It's about connecting visuals with space and time through objects and juxtaposition.

QWhat happens when you bring your work into nature as setting?

AI see a great contrast between the human hand and mother nature. It just becomes so obvious and beautiful how awkwardly we fit into this world.

A translucent scarf with yellow, purple, and brown abstract patterns floating in the wind over a calm blue ocean under a bright sun.

A miniature outdoor diorama scene with a small house, colorful painted stones, a painted pool, rocks, tall grass, and a blue sky in the background.

QYou also teach art, what are some of your favorite assignments for students? Which ones do they have the most fun with?

AWe did a Dream Room project inspired by Fort Makers! They loved that. Tiny little magical rooms with portals or water slides or dirt bike tracks. I also love doing expressive self-portraits with them, because they get so camera shy when they have to make a funny face.

QHow has being a former high school cheerleader made you a stronger person today?

ALove this question! I think it has made me rediscover in adulthood the joys of cheering people on. I genuinely think it is so fun. I love to be supportive. It brings me great joy. So thank you cheerleading! Go team!