Naomi Boiko-Stapleton - Twenty Two

This collection of 22 paintings is comprised of watercolour on cotton works which each invite an intimacy due to their scale. They have a ghostlike ethereal quality that suggests a fleeting moment in time, almost lost, existing now only in memory. 

Often singular cropped portraits of young women, these works serve as snapshots of intimate conversations - a secret language of mutual understanding - between two sisters. These paintings represent a visual vocabulary that reconciles an experience of loss, inviting ever-evolving reinterpretations of a personal mythology shared between these two young women. 

The number 22 was given significance by the death of their mother, and now exists as a symbolic anchor of hope for the pair, a message from the afterlife, and a sign that they are both heading in the right direction. 

After the passing of their mother, Naomi took on the caregiving role to her younger sister, and these works reflect that dual nature of responsibility and naivety, strength and vulnerability.  

These paintings are Naomi’s attempt to navigate the confusion created by both fulfilling a mothering role whilst still being little more than a child herself.  

They also address the loss of innocence at this formative stage of a young woman's life, both in a sexual sense but also the isolation and confusion of when one first become an ‘adult’.   

"Conversations with my sister, intertwined with personal experiences and musical influences, serve as the genesis of the imagery, grounding the work in the shared intimacy of familial bonds.”