NAEMI
NAEMI
The late artist Naemi Eriksson portrayed her life in paintings of flowers of all sorts. She called them “evil” and “good” flowers. Instead of doing evil actions, she painted evil flowers. It was a way to cope with life as a busy nurse and mother on the Swedish island Gotland. In 2020, she would have turned 100 years. To celebrate that, Museum of Gotland collected her most interesting pieces to display in the summer of 2020. I rebranded the exhibition and gave Naemi her own typeface.
Today, my family takes care of Naemi’s old house, where the walls are covered in flowers and the doors have huge faces painted all over them. We eat among her flowers and sleep behind her portraits, and it’s a privilege to experience her art in the way she intended. In her books, she mentioned wanting to escape reality sometimes, and I believe that’s why she tried to fill her house with all these magical paintings.
Naemi’s surrealistic paintings spread from canvas to wall to door. And they are often based on the nature of her garden. I realised that the way she goes beyond the frame in her work, my typeface should too. That’s why the core of this font is the sense that it goes beyond what you can see.
The top of most characters are cut off to visualise this. I based the curves off of a stem-like shape to resemble her love for gardening and flower motifs. The bold and sharp segments complement the soft and delicate curves of the characters. Much like Naemi’s darker side behind the precious greenery.
In the branding of the exhibition I wanted to keep the same theme, but still be able to show Naemi’s actual works of art. I used a zoomed in window of her paintings to get the same idea of them continuing beyond the frame. The primary color for the exhibition is poppy orange and the secondary color is a blueweed’s blue for a nice contrast.
A sketch of how I would curate the exhibition at the museum.
In July 2022, I took a course in typography and branding, at School of Visual Arts NYC. The assignment for the month was to create a custom typeface for a specific brand. I dedicated my typeface to Naemi.