Inner Workings: A Closer Look at Five Key Works by Naomi Faifai

In Inner Workings, Naomi Faifai shares the marks, moments, and memories that shape her distinctive visual language. Guided by intuition, memory, and a love for symbolism, Naomi’s works feel at once personal and universal.

Below, Naomi reflects on five pieces that hold meaning for her. Offering insight into her process and connection to the world around her.

All Before Noon

I love that so much can be said with a few marks, whole stories and histories in a simple line or pattern. I love that a symbol can be anything, open to interpretation. Universal or obscure. An inside joke or cultural reference. I see symbols and patterns everywhere I go now. I don't sketch as much as I used to but store images away and use the beginning layers of a painting like a sketchbook, playing and drawing from memory.

A Closer Look 1

I painted this little piece after spending the afternoon looking at some beautiful old siapo. It's always fascinating to me the way a creature or object is broken down into a few lines. Then a pattern. Repeating or reversed on itself. Intricate and fine or bold dark lines. Mānuka flowers have been popping up a bit for me recently. There's so much to work with. The tiny seed capsules. Spindly branches and stamens. How loved they are here in Aotearoa. All the shapes and flowers are drawn with a stick or the reverse end of a paintbrush, dipped in ink. By the time I finish a piece my stick is usually a short little stump, sharpened with a craft knife after every few shapes... 

Garden Of Memories

Spending time in the garden, pulling weeds and trimming tomatoes, is a quiet happy place. There's not much else to think about other than what kind of new zucchini to grow or why a leaf is starting to look the way it does. I find inspiration in all the odd and beautiful little plants that pop up where they're not meant to be. Garden Of Memories gives everything space to grow. Past, present and future crossing paths. Sometimes getting a bit tangled up or overgrown on the way.

Quiet Reflections Seaside

For me, the sea and sand are places of calm and quiet. This was painted after a little snapshot of inspiration at Caroline Bay in Timaru. A plan for waves on waves, all the shades of blue. Creatures of the sea. Then memories of eels hanging from the washing line, nights at the river. Spiky kina on the bench. Of course it had to be a huge piece, the ocean being so vast. Felt a bit impossible for me to capture something so immense on a small scale. 

Head Full of Thoughts

My brain is always buzzing, full of noise, chatter, ideas. People I've met, plants I picked up on a walk but cant remember the name of. Texts I meant to reply to, a cute dog on walk to town, an interaction that made me smile. A Quick look inside. Thoughts turned to symbol and pattern.

Naomi Faifai’s Inner Workings transforms everyday moments into symbols that hum within. Through her intuitive mark-making and reflective process, Naomi shows us how stories live in the smallest details: a flower drawn with a sharpened stick, a garden overgrown with time, a wave remembered from a childhood beach.

In tracing the origins of each work, we come to see that these pieces are more than paintings, they’re quiet, visual diaries of a life lived attentively. And in sharing them, Naomi leaves space for us to bring our own meanings too.

Opening Thursday 1st of May 5:00 PM
Location: The Frame Gallery 182 Jervois Road, Herne Bay