Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Naomie Kremer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Naomie, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’m not a physical risk taker, but creatively I always welcome an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before. This applies to my video set design work as well as my approach to painting, in which all my work is rooted. I think just about every creative risk I’ve taken has worked out! But being an optimist, maybe I’m forgetting the ones that haven’t…

In 2008 I started to project video onto my paintings (I call them “hybrid paintings”) as a way to disrupt the traditional relationship of the viewer to a canvas. The result is a perceptual shock, which keeps viewers looking at a painting way longer than normal.

In 2013 I worked with the San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances to create a video-based set design for a world premiere opera based on The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, with a score by Nolan Gasser. I’ve subsequently collaborated with him on video for rock concerts at SF Jazz and Royce Hall at UCLA. It was spectacular seeing the energy created by the synergy between music and projections. I’d love to do something at The Sphere!

I’m currently working on a tile project based on one of my paintings, for an indoor pool wall 9′ x 63′ – a first for me. I’m also collaborating for the first time with ShadowLight Productions on a shadow puppet production based on Marc Chagall’s autobiography, “My Life.” He wrote it at the age of 35, and it’s as surreal as Salvador Dali’s autobiography (which he wrote at 36), and very funny.

Naomie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I think I was born an artist, but it took me a slightly circuitous route to get there as an adult. I was raised to think about a practical career, and being an artist is not a practical career––it’s more like a hopeful utopian obsession.

I minored in art in college, and I thought graphic designer would be good way to channel that into a commercial activity. I got my start in graphic design by getting a lowly job at the SF Bay Guardian pasting up the Classified Ads. Eventually I became the Assistant Art Director, and later Art Director at the Yoga Journal. Then I started my own graphic design business, which I owned for seven years. I had some big clients, so I was able to sell the business and pursue my true passion – making art, rather than working for clients in the business world. I’ve since had paintings commissioned, but that’s very different.

A couple of years after I switched to art making, I realized that I needed to get into the art “conversation,” so I enrolled in CCA (CCAC at the time) and got an MFA. It turned out that my previous career as a graphic designer was incredibly useful: it taught me discipline, commitment to a regular schedule, and also skills in Photoshop, which really came in handy as an artist.

I taught painting and drawing for a few years – at the San Francisco Art Institute, Cal State Hayward, and CCAC. One of my students at SFAI whom I employed as a part-time assistant introduced me to digital media (the program Flash!). This was a whole new passion, eventually becoming as big a part of my practice as painting and drawing. Video opened up the world of set design, which I enjoy enormously, partly because I love a large canvas, and there is no larger canvas than the stage. Working in set design is a collaboration, which is a whole different set of challenges. I’ve worked with musicians and dancers, in theater, and in opera, and I’m told that as a painter I bring a unique visual language into these worlds.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think constantly having to invent yourself is the most rewarding and challenging part of working as an artist: to self-motivate and treat it as a job, though there is no external schedule or goal. Following your curiosity about materials and subject matter, fed by what you might see or hear or read that could stimulate an entirely new direction – these are all things that make working as a creative so satisfying. It’s also the hard part: There are no guarantees, you have to do it for the satisfaction of doing it. And then you hope that others will be interested.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Making art you constantly have to pivot in small ways, responding to what you just made and continuing to adjust and change the work till you’re “satisfied.” But switching from graphic design to art was the huge pivot.

This year I had an exhibition of new paintings at Modernism gallery in San Francisco – a gallery I’ve been showing with for 25 years. In these new paintings I tried a different approach to space and composition, marrying drawing with painting in a new way. It’s a risky proposition for an artist to change the style for which they’re known. But as Willem de Kooning famously said when he was attacked for changing his style late in life: “I have to change to stay the same.”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.naomiekremer.com
• Instagram: @naomiekremer
• Facebook: Naomie Kremer, artist
• Linkedin: Naomie Kremer
• Youtube: @NaomieKremer
• Other: https://vimeo.com/naomiekremer