Naomi Alessandra

Naomi Alessandra is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and writer currently pursuing both an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in the History and Theory of Contemporary Art as part of SFAI’s Dual Degree program. She received her BA in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Naomi turned her full attention to her studio art and research practice in 2016 after a decade-long career in illustration and graphic design. Her artwork and research explore themes of structural integrity, shifting identities, and new materialisms, most often via large-scale water media works on paper as well as mixed-media sculpture. In addition, she is currently working on her master’s thesis, which interrogates conceptions of witchcraft and magic in contemporary art.

Since 2016, she has exhibited in a number of solo and group gallery shows in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Her work is included in numerous private collections. In 2017/18, she was named the Max Thelen Artist in Residence at Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, California, and in 2020, she was the recipient of the Pirkle Jones Visual Artist Support Grant. Also in 2020, just prior to beginning her graduate studies at SFAI, she showed a series of work entitled Impossible Tasks in a solo exhibition at the College of Marin Fine Arts Gallery. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.