Wonderfools 2013 by Naomi Devil

NAOMI DEVIL

THE WONDERFOOLS

NAOMI DEVIL THE WONDERFOOLS

CURRICULUM VITAE

Artist name: Naomi Devil Born: 10.03.1987. Lives and works in: Vienna- AU, Berchtesgaden- D, Budapest-HU Studies: 2011-2013: Academy of Applied Arts Vienna, Graphic Design Professor: Oliver Kartak 2006-2010: Technical University Vienna, Architecture Main professors: William Alsop, Oliver Schürer 2004-2008: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Kontextual Painting Professors: Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum, Elke Krystufek, Hans Schreil 2002,2003,2006: Summeracademy Salzburg Professors: Caroline Broadhead, Rivka Rinn, Andrea Fogli Works in Museums and Collections: MOYA (Museum of Young Art Vienna- Palais Schönborn) Karton Gallery and Museum Budapest K-ARTS KÈSZ Collection Art fairs: 2008: Budapest Fair, Karton Gallery and Museum 2006: Art.Fair Cologne, Gallery Exner Scholarship: 2006: Scholarship of the Summeracademy Salzburg Nominated: 2012: Artist wanted: Self Creative Competition New York 2011: Artist wanted: Year in Review Competition New York 2011: Artist wanted: Power of Self Art Award New York 2010: Roter Teppich für junge Kunst Vienna 2008: Strabag Art Award Austria 2007: Strabag Art Award Hungary 2002: DNA Art Award

CURRICULUM VITAE

Selection of solo shows: 2013: MOYA (Museum of Young Art), Looking back to the future-10 Years Naomi Devil, Vienna 2013: VIRTAURA, Kunstverein Köszeg 2012: Gallery Szatyor, Deep blue se(a)lf, Budapest 2012: Exhibition Hall, Kalocsa 2011: Kunsthalle Szombathely, Metaverse art, Szombathely 2009: Gallery Artitude, Budapest 2008: Museum Postsparkasse, X-ist, Resist, X-cite,Vienna 2007: Hungarian Cultural Center, SPACE WARP, Prague 2006: Gallery Mucius, DOWNLOAD::MEDIA, Budapest 2006: MOYA (Museum of Young Art), Vienna 4 solo exhibitions: Naomi Devil, Adam Bota, Jaye, Stylianos Schicho 2005: Gallery Art Position,Vienna 2005: Gallery Mucius, PINKFERNO, Budapest Selection of group shows: 2013: MOYA Annuale 2013: The Virtual World in Reality, Gallery Szatyor, Budapest 2012: Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels: Hommage an mich, Vienna 2012: International ArtExpo: Hidden and Forbidden Identities, Italy Venice 2012: NUS 2012, Split 2011: Gallery Stephan Stumpf: Die Verführkraft schöner Kunst,Munich 2010: Degree Art London 2010: Nord Art, Büdelsdorf 2010: Wir leben und arbeiten in Wien, Area 35, Vienna 2009: Nőnem/Women, Erdei Ferenc Cultural Center, Kecskemét 2008: Embodyment, Academy of Fine Arts, Aula,Vienna 2007: Gallery Exner, POP 07, Vienna 2006: GalleryExner, Junge Sommer,Vienna 2006: Ernst Museum Dorottya Gallery, Budapest 2005: IZD Tower, Devil and Garcia Pozo,Vienna 2005: MOYA (Museum of Young Art): New Romantics,Vienna 2005: Art Position, Ottakringer Brauerei, Vienna 2005: Selfportait UK 14-19, Touring exhibition: Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Manchester Art Gallery, National Museum & Gallery Cardiff, Peterborough Digital Arts Museum & Gallery, The New Art Gallery Walsall, National Portrait Gallery London, London Underground 2004: Brick Lane Art: Art In Mind, London

CURRICULUM VITAE

Publications: 2013: Népszabadság Magazin Interview and cover, 2013 August 23-29, Budapest 2013: Népszabadság: Rivalda-Mindent egy kofferbe, July 4., Budapest 2013: Népszabadság Magazin (my picture on the cover), 2013/03 January 21-27, Budapest 2010: Nord Art 2010 Catalogue 2008: Klubrádio Interview in Mececenas, December , Budapest 2008: Budapest Sun ,December, Budapest 2008: Új Művészet, Budapest Fair review, December, Budapest 2007: Great Fashion Illustration Book by Martin Dawber, 2007, London 2006: Art Fair Cologne Catalogue 2006: Interview Foggygrizzly foggygrizzly.blogspot.com, November 2006: Interview with Extreme-Art www.extreme-art.hu, June, Budapest 2006: Naomi Devil Portfolio 2005: Pro Arts, Close Up Portait: Chronistin der Jugendkultur, 2005, Wien 2004: Gent Sanat 114, Daha 17, Istanbul 2004: Népszabadsag, may 2., Budapest 2004: Ujbuda: Digital oil and post pop-art, may 26., Budapest 2004: Rapscallion 16, She is 17 and paints like an angel...she is Naomi Devil, 2004, London TV: 2013: Hír TV: Paletta, Interview 2008: Domino TV, Report of my Art 2004: MTV1 ( Hungarian Television ): Galeria, 2004, Budapest

INTERVIEW : PAINTING IS NOT DEAD

I met Naomi Devil (Noémi Ördög), a Hungarian painter in 2011. Then I also got the chance to work together with her. We organized the exhibition called ’Pink Propaganda’. Now I met her again to talk a bit about her, where she is in life, what’s changed since we haven’t seen each other… Naomi has been commuting between Stuttgart, Vienna and Budapest since her early childhood. Her artistic impulse gathered momentum was by becoming familiar with different cultures during her travels, and by her upbringing in the family. Naomi lays great emphasis on the message that is transmitted by the picture. She is convinced that there is no sense in painting without a clear message. She is concerned about such topics as pollution, the greed for money, media manipulation, but she is interested in fashion, Federico Fellini’s films, or even swing dance as well. In her opinion it is very important that she enjoys her own creative power. Her sarcastic imagery provokes the mind to wonder and to think about. Sometimes it is the humor that dominates and is acknowledged with a smile of the observer. Every picture reveals an intelligent opinion. The artist’s sincere, sophisticated and crazy style binds the audience for ever. DV - Tell me how you found art… ND - I started my career early, at the age of 16. Having to study from home, the only place for me to socialize was the Internet. Chat rooms, forums and role-playing games had a great affect on my future work. While surfing on the Internet, I was soon interested in fashion and wanted to become a punk/ dark gothic fashion designer. Owing to two fundamental experiences I later changed my mind and turned towards another creative medium. When I visited the Saatchi Gallery in London, also in the same year a fashion class at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, I got convinced that painting can be more fascinating than my grandfathers impressionist landscapes. I understood that it still offers endless possibilities to express contemporary ideas and lifestyles. Since then I know: Painting is not dead, art is not dead, it is only the way of thinking of an artist that can give birth to dead artworks. Right after the fashion course in Salzburg I stumbled upon the Tokyo street style fashion book FRUITS by Shoichi Aoki (in the central bookstore of Stuttgart), and as a first attempt in the new medium I tried to paint one of the girls from this book - with quite stunning result for a new-be artist. This painting is still hanging at the entrance of my atelier to remind me where I started. After this first success came a series of portraits of people I knew from the Internet: bald women, cyborgs, punks, wave goths, lolitas, ravers, club kids, harajuku and hip-hop people. Fashion and identity became the central topic of my works. 8

INTERVIEW : PAINTING IS NOT DEAD

My father was always very supportive, when he saw that I am interested in painting and I have a taste for dark things he bought me the book of Gottfried Helnwein and drew my attention to films like The Wall and Fellini `s Rome. (A funny coincidence that I painted several paintings of Marilyn Manson before Helnwein.) I think the aesthetic of my childhood also had a great affect on me. The glittering, plastic-unrealistic toys, the Disney films, and Cartoon Network. The extremities of horror pop culture and the sugar coated Disney world became a part of me. During the same period of my life, at the age of 17, I started to create emotional self-portraits (with my web camera) that were soon discovered by art historian Dr. Kubilaj Akman, who published them in the Turkish art magazine Genc Sanat. The same year I’ve been accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts - by Adi Rosenblum and Markus Muntean. The academy was very free, I got a place to work and the professors never influenced my work in any way. They gave me the freedom I needed to develop on my own and practice my self-driven discipline. The academy was the only school I could stand in my life. I was really happy there. The moment I have teachers who tell me what to do, how to change my work I freak out. This is the reason I never finished my architecture studies for example. I always say: I am an autodidact with a diploma in her hand. I am my own professor and student till the rest of my life. DV – Is there anything in particular that you’d like to tell your audience through your work? ND - After a while, painting young underground people was not enough. I started to form my opinion about the World and developed an irony that does not want to ridicule, but to call attention by distorting reality. I think it is not an accident that my family name means devil, my artistic attitude is a bit like Lucifer`s. I soon understood the spirit of our times and the dictatorship of media. My thesis topic at the Academy of Fine Arts (in 2008) was about Media Addiction (‘Maddict’). It could be also seen as a reaction to my own Internet addiction, especially of role-playing games, shopping vintage dresses, and costumes to change my identity. I showed spam birds talking in pixel bubbles, a gorgon head with electric cable hair, small portraits with LCD screens as a frame. One of these screens in particular pictured myself with my own Second Life Avatar. My maddiction influenced my work a lot. My earlier topics such as the question of identity and consumerism got mixed up with the idea of a second non-existent life. A life of freedom, illusions and dreams where even the weirdest genetic engineering is possible and a space is free of gravity and physical rules.

INTERVIEW : PAINTING IS NOT DEAD DV – What are you working on at the moment? ND - My art always had many strands since the beginning. My aim now is to band these strands into a big strong rope, to clarify my position and thoughts. Today I think I am on the right way. I am working on a series of portraits at the moment, almost life size. I have moved to a more open ended picturing and I got back to my earlier reduced style. I am adding much more texture to the surface, the sharp edges are disappearing, and I quit using fluorescent colours that were dominant on my early works. I’m leaving more to the audience for imagination avoiding being didactic and bold. I think it’s important that while painting something contemporary (phenomena, happenings, etc.) I do not become the late newsboy. Even Francisco Goya drew more than a simple documentation of the disasters of war - in times when there was no photography. My way is to give a view of a certain thing a bit absurd, ironic, something that confuses and leaves the viewer wondering. I want my paintings to have a certain Hieronymus Bosch quality: it challenges the western brain that has become too rational. We do not always understand it at first sight, but as we look at it long enough it becomes clear that it’s about the human nature. Bosch depicted desires, dreams, temptations, in a reduced way: a red round fruit. I do it the opposite way, our society offers all kinds of joys and dreams to reach, I enlarge and alter them, invent new ones, create imaginary spaces for them. After a few years, in 2010 I got back to my emotional portraits that were not influenced by my other works. These are self-portraits forming a unique and intimate biography, in which I portrayed myself with the utmost sincerity, and where I dig deeper into reality to find the truth. The way I turn the invisible into visible helps to understand not only me, but our existence as well. This two processes of distortion by morphing into another layer of reality and making the invisible visible gives the highly realistic portraits a surrealist touch. It leads to a bit of misunderstanding. My work has nothing to do with the subconscious. It’s all real. I am painting about things that are real and are happening now. What I do is closer to the creativity technique called “semantic intuition”. It’s just that I’m not combining words to create new meanings but images. I’m still making self-portrait photos, they are very important to me. Rembrandt is a great inspiration, how one can express emotional status with a powerful facial expression. These portraits have an “eternal glow”. You can’t really put them into an era. Some people criticize artist doing only self-portraits, because they only concentrate on one piece of the puzzle of life. It’s more than unwise to say something like this. For example there is Cindy Sherman, using only herself to show hundreds of personalities of different social statuses. Or there is Shirin Neshat with her political feminist self-portraits. When I’m making self-portraits I’m interested in the “eternal glow” and the message. I think exhibitionism and self-confidence is important for an artist, it’s only narcissism that is dangerous.

INTERVIEW : PAINTING IS NOT DEAD DV - What are the ‘rules’ you live by? ND - One thing I have learnt from traveling-life is that I actually don’t need much to live. Every property is a burden I have to carry. Western society is filled with too many objects and still the desire for more and more is awaken. I have come to the point that I can pack my life in one single suitcase. I`m happy that I have overcome the dictatorship of consumerism. I throw and give away everything I do not need or use. I developed an object-phobia: my ideal space is big and empty. A space which I can fill with my art and where there’s enough room for new ideas. Quality was always an important aspect of my art and my life. The only thing I collect now are vintage clothes and costumes for myself and my work. I do not buy anything from global clothing concernes. Most dresses women wear today on the streets are not more than worldwar nightgowns. After the era of ’quantity for the quantity’, people should finally start to think about ’quality for the quantity’, and not only about profit. As one rule of many others I would mention one more: I don`t have a TV and I will never have one again. Interview by Dori Varga curator and art manager , Budapest 2013

THE WONDERFOOLS

Firefly metamorphose (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Juggling (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

GELATO (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Balloons- Homage to Szinyei Merse Pรกl (2013), 60x90 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Worm (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Harvest (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Jungle (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Madonna of the mushrooms (2013), 170x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Life is a game- David (2013), 170x85 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Temptation 1 (2013), 150x1200 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Temptation 2 (2013), 150x120 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Temptation 3. (2013), 150x120 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Temptation 4.(2013), 100x80 cm, oil on canvas

THE WONDERFOOLS

Temptation 5. (2013), 75x85 cm, oil on canvas