Artist Naomi Okubo’s bright and vibrant images are inspired by her experiences as a teenager growing up in Japan. As she explains it, “In my personal experiences, when I changed my own image, people changed their attitude toward me… I have been interested in appearances ever since”. Okubo’s paintings are beautifully saturated and visually appealing, featuring vivid florals, clear landscapes, and images of girls in adolescence, but rarely their faces. Her work may just strike a chord with those sometimes at risk of falling victim to unrealistic, media-crafted ideals. In her statement, she says, “Mass media provides us not only with images of created appearances, but also images of lifestyles and ways of spending our time… We are overly exposed and consume these images so much, that we become confused about what is real and what is contrived. The consequence is that we become addicted to them” a relevant commentary on the impact of today’s commercial culture.
See more of Naomi Okubo’s work here.
Text by L. Kimberly Leung
