“My artworks are the perfect mix between my passion for photography and design. The fascination for the past is the key, the flashing colours are the portal.”
Naomi Vona’s Artistic Fusion
Naomi Vona is an Italian artist who currently pursues her creative endeavors in the lively city of London. Naomi is a distinguished alumna of Milan’s Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where she obtained her degree in Design and Photography.
Her artistic journey, fueled by a profound enthusiasm for illustration and photography, began with her explorations in collage art during her student years. This early experimentation laid the groundwork for the development of her unique style that would come to fruition later in her career.
In 2013, Vona ventured into the realm of mixed media, where she began to experiment with vintage photographs. She breathed new life into these pieces by embellishing them with playful doodles and artful sticker applications. The transformative process and the resulting artwork filled Vona with a sense of elation and fulfillment, leading her to realize that this was her ideal mode of artistic expression.
As her career progressed, Vona expanded her creative scope to include more contemporary images. Her stylistic approach, she believes, lends itself well to these modern visuals, further extending the reach and impact of her work.
Inspirations and Techniques of Naomi Vona
Naomi Vona employs an eclectic fusion of collage, illustration, and photography, using pre-existing found images as her canvas. Each work is a direct manifestation of her personal life experiences, incorporating dual meanings and playful linguistic elements into her art. Her passion for pop culture is evident in her frequent citations of favored songs, books, and movies, with many of her pieces bearing titles inspired by these sources.
Vona’s preferred medium is paper, chosen due to its ubiquity and versatility. However, a few years prior, she ventured into using wood as a substrate, finding its tactile quality and durability equally compelling. This experimentation with wood paneling is viewed by the artist as a natural evolution of her creative endeavor, and she anticipates producing more wood-based pieces in the near future.
The composition of each artwork is a carefully balanced triad: the first element is Vona’s personal background, the second is her diverse inspirations, and the third is her subconscious. The latter serves as a potent unifying force, binding the other elements together into a cohesive whole.
Vona’s art masterfully blends her love for photography and design, with a distinctive reverence for the past acting as the primary driving force. The artist’s use of vibrant, arresting colors serves as a portal, transporting the viewer to bygone eras. Vona imagines possessing an imaginary portal that whisks her back in time at will, and her artworks are the visual testimonies of these temporal escapades.
The Artistic Journey of Naomi Vona
Renowned for her impassioned dedication to the world of art, Naomi Vona draws inspiration from a broad spectrum of historic art movements, with Pop Art, Dada, and Surrealism standing as significant influences. While she harbors a deep appreciation for a plethora of contemporary artists, her particular affinity gravitates towards collage artists, illustrators, and photographers.
Her educational tenure within the realm of art fostered a burgeoning desire to establish a career within this creative field. Vona began her journey by sharing her explorative collage work online, swiftly recognizing a captivated audience intrigued by her unique projects. In 2013, a mere month after she began showcasing her artistry, curators made their interest known, inviting her to participate in various events and exhibitions. This marked the genesis of Vona’s professional artistic journey, a path that would ultimately crystallize into her reality.
At present, Vona resides in a modest London flat, where her desk serves as her creative epicenter. Although she aspires to occupy a dedicated studio in the future, her current setup satisfies her needs, equipped with a desk and her selection of preferred art materials. The challenges of working in solitude can occasionally present distractions and bouts of self-doubt. However, Vona remains resolute in her pursuit, focusing intently on her creative odyssey. At times, an engaging conversation with a friend proves beneficial, helping to realign her concentration and reignite her focus on her art.
Naomi Vona’s “Selling Lies” Project
One of Naomi Vona’s most significant artistic undertakings is undoubtedly the project entitled “Selling Lies”, a visual endeavor initiated in 2017. This project was sparked by her desire to partake in the Instagram challenge known as the “100 Days Project”. Vona’s innovative concept entailed a comprehensive transformation of a fashion magazine into a vivid, personal visual diary. This effort cultivated a unique dialogue between the often superficial world of fashion advertisements and her deeply personal interpretations of the fashion industry.
“Selling Lies” manifested as an intensely personal, entertaining, and thought-provoking art project, wherein Vona utilized her signature layered technique. The methodology involved manipulating existing images to imbue them with new layers of meaning, challenging the viewer’s perception. This exploratory journey has since evolved into an art class named “From Fashion Ad to Protest”. Here, Vona inspires her students to craft their own art journals using a similar approach.
By 2020, Vona had completed her initial magazine, having meticulously transformed every page. Now, her creative process continues as she embarks on a new magazine, documenting her progress through “making of” videos shared on her Instagram account. This venture has also grown into a collective endeavor, as Vona’s students and followers globally contribute to the project by creating their own art journals from found magazines. This sense of communal creativity and shared artistic exploration provides Vona with immense gratification.
Looking ahead, Vona harbors aspirations to extend her artistic canvas, with plans to venture into larger-scale work. She has nurtured this ambition for quite some time and is eager to bring this vision to fruition. The opportunity to translate her distinctive style onto larger canvases promises to be an exciting new phase in Vona’s artistic journey.
