Naomi Okubo’s acrylic paintings on cotton wrestle with identity, offering both introspective scenes and rich experiments in patterns and texture. The artist’s work is influenced by the ideals given to us by mass media and gender norms. Her work pulls from advertisements, self-portraits, and other sources.
“I have been interested in people’s appearance and how people’s lifestyle is alike,” she says. “Appearance is the part of the identity of people. When you see someone, you can recognize a little bit about their personalities and their life through their individual appearance. By the way, what is an identity? How do we develop own identities? This question is the primarily theme of my work.”
See more of her work below.
American artists — from the painters of the Hudson River School to the influential Andrew Wyeth — have long depicted this country’s vast landscape as simultaneously a place of lonely desolation and of awe-inspiring grandeur. Following in this tradition, 
Setting soft and supple nudes against graphic patterns and textures, Brooklyn-based painter