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Hand made by Naomi

Inspiring her audience - that’s the aim of up-and-coming artist Naomi Smith.

 

And her new exhibition – Hand made – on show now at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, is all set to help her reach her goal.

 

The 24-year-old uses drawing and sculpture to explore personal themes of a universal nature. Naomi prefers sensuous materials such as honey and wax. She says: “My work reflects upon the memory and loss of traditions and skills passed from generation to generation. Using beeswax to cast industrial tools allows me to mirror the effect of the global disappearance of the honeybee with that of the demise of industries and loss of craftsmanship.”

 

Her well-travelled parents were an early inspiration for Naomi: “Ever since I was a child I have been making things,” she says. “My parents would sit me down with whatever was lying around and I would spend hours gluing things together making intricate sculptures out of the most mundane of items.”

 

There was never a question of what she wanted to do when she grew up: “Art has followed me everywhere I have been and I wouldn’t know what to do without it.”

 

After spending her childhood travelling around the world with her parents, the family finally settled down in Gloucestershire when Naomi was nine years old. There, she went to Stroud College of Art and Design, going on to receive a 1st class honours in ‘Fine Art: Combined Media’ at Swansea Metropolitan University.

 

She is currently artist in residence at Swansea Met, creating work with the theme of memory and mortality.

 

“Every piece that I make is intricate in detail thus enticing the eye to recognise that which is often overlooked or taken for granted,” says Naomi. “I want my audience to be inspired, to recognise the beauty which lingers in the mundane, and invite them to open up their memories and feel touched.

 

“I want to evoke the hand’s addiction to make contact and show what it is capable of creating.”

 

* Naomi Smith’s exhibition Hand Made is at the Courtyard Gallery at the National Botanic Garden of Wales from February 1 until March 24