Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Naomi Safran-Hon

Naomi Safran-Hon

Brooklyn, New York

“Bends of Wood Grid (Turquoise Room)” is an rectangular altered photograph of a dilapidated interior in space in Haifa, Israel. The room has two door openings, and an angled ceiling with wooden beams. Debris covers the floor, and wood scaffolding has collapsed. The heavily distressed walls are turquoise, yellow and white, and the photograph is marked all over with textured cement pushed through areas of the photograph.

Bends of Wood Grid (Turquoise Room)

2023

“The Slabs of my Depth” is a rectangular and textured assemblage. At the center, a partially legible photograph of a dilapidated interior space is visible, with a blue wall above beige tiles and slabs of broken concrete. Moving out from center, areas are covered with different floral and patterned laces, punctuated with textures of cement pushing through fine holes, and swashes of blue and green paint turning the composition increasingly abstract.

The Slabs of my Depth

2022

“Soft Power” is a rectangular altered photograph of a stone wall with vegetation growing in between the stones. The surface is covered in various places with black and beige lace, painted green in areas, and cement pushes through the fine holes of the lace in areas, echoing the stone textures of the partially visible photograph.

Soft Power

2022

“Growing Inside” is a mixed media image assemblage, nearly square and made of two panels. In the larger left panel is a photograph of a dilapidated interior in space in Haifa, Israel. It has a vaulted ceiling, crumbling walls, and the floor is covered with debris and trash. Cement is pushed through areas of the photograph, creating areas of texture. On the panel to the right, the architectural scene is extended, but articulated in fabric, lace, sequins and paint.

Growing Inside

2020

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Naomi Safran-Hon

Headshot of Naomi Safran-Hon, a woman with Middle Eastern and Jewish heritage, light skin tone, and brown hair pulled up into a bun. She smiles and wears a black blouse and two thin gold necklaces.

Born in Oxford, England, Naomi Safran-Hon grew up in Haifa, Israel. Her visual work reflects on the way in which political reality affects the everyday. Safran-Hon received her BA Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University in 2008, in Studio Art and Art History, and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2010. She attended Skowhegan in 2012 and Art Omi in 2016. She was a 2019-2020 Workspace Resident at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Safran-Hon has had solo exhibitions at Slag Gallery, New York; Brandt Gallery, Amsterdam; RX Gallery, Paris; and Marfa Contemporary, Marfa, Texas. Her work has been included in group shows at the Haifa Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Marianne Boesky Gallery, and P.P.O.W Gallery. Her spring 2020 solo show, All My Lovers, at Slag Gallery garnered a profile in The New York Times. Safran-Hon was a recipient of the BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize in 2020. In addition, she has been a visiting artist at Haverford College, Montclair State University, Towson University, Swarthmore College, and Sarah Lawrence college. She lives and works in Brooklyn and teaches at Columbia University, Pratt Institute and CUNY Staten Island.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2023

Website / Social Links

“ My work represents a lifelong journey of investigating my identity and the relationship I have with my home. I grew up in Haifa, Israel, where I struggled to make sense of the violence I witnessed. By transforming my photographs of abandoned buildings into mixed-media paintings, I use the urban landscape to construct a different narrative. The materiality of my work draws the viewer into the tragic reality of where I come from to find their connection to their own home.”

Related Journal Entries

In an artist’s studio, a white woman with brown hair, a white turtleneck, and black sweater and pants touches her face with her hand while looking toward the left frame of the photo. On the wall are paintings of distressed interior spaces. Small paintings and art making materials surround the artist on the floor.

In the Studio: Naomi Safran-Hon

"I have found this neighborhood in Haifa to be a kind of metaphor for the confli...