Naomi Kendall & Lisa Takahashi

About

Naomi Kendall is an artist based in Somerset. Her work is mainly focused around cutting, folding and weaving paper by hand. She loves working in colour, but also makes monochrome work and adds her own marks to the paper with inks and paints. She also makes paper jewellery. She is inspired by many things: the collections she draws while exploring museums, colourful textiles, ceramics, architecture and the small corners of the world she has explored. Her tools are simple: a pencil, a ruler, a knife, a pair of scissors and some glue. After a career working in galleries, community arts and as Director of an arts charity in London, she returned to making her own work. 

Naomi exhibits her work in the South West and across the UK. Recent exhibitions include “Matisse and the Contemporary Paper Artists” at Rheged in Penrith, “Solace” at the Brewhouse in Taunton and at the Sou Sou West gallery in Bridport. Her work is stocked at ACE Arts in Somerton. She was the Evolver Prize winner this year and also joint second prize winner at the Ilminster Summer Open exhibition 2022. Naomi is also featured as a master artisan in the Michelangelo Foundation’s Homo Faber Guide.

Lisa Takahashi is a British Japanese Painter and Printmaker, who has been based in Taunton for the past 5 years. Her work celebrates everyday imagery – such as cyclists hurtling down a country lane, gardens in flower, moored boats and the knitted shapes of fields across a landscape. Her primary fascination is with colour, texture and shape. Drawing is at the heart of her practice, it is a way of looking and distilling the essence of a subject, allowing the artist to make an interpretation of a scene imbued with energy and atmosphere. 

Lisa exhibits her work regularly across the UK and has had work selected for esteemed shows including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the NEAC Annual show, the SWA Annual show and at the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and the RWS. in 2018 she reached the Semi-finals of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year as the Wild Card Winner for the series, and in 2022 was the judge and mentor for the Devon region on Channel 5s Watercolour Challenge.