Naomi Press

Naomi Press is known for rhythmic and abstract sculptures made from either liquid silver, stainless steel, or red-brick terracotta. She immigrated to Zimbabwe as a child, but has spent much of her life living in South Africa. After raising a family in Johannesburg, she completed an education in art at the Craighall Academy (1968–70). Press became functionally blind in her late forties. Rhythmic abstraction, tensile strength, and lightness of movement relate to her early ballet training. She spent time in Italy during the late 1970s, where she worked in bronze and marble. In 1982, her bronze Mother and Child sculpture was chosen by Johnson and Johnson as the floating trophy for the baby-of-the-year award. Resonant with wider trends in Modernist sculpture and encouraged by friend and art critic Clement Greenberg, Press began to work in stainless steel from 1983. Her move to London in 2001 inspired the ‘Citadel Series’ (2002–5) of terracotta brick and resin sculptures, reminiscent of the city architecture. More recently, Press has made work in highly-polished silvered bronze, which gives the sculpture a mirror-finish. Public commissions include twelve-foot stainless steel trophies (1992) for the Faculty of Engineering, University of Johannesburg, and Solo II (2012) in Cavendish Square, London.