Connecting people to art
BIO
Naomi is currently a freelance arts writer and lecturer and has twenty years’ experience in art and education. She is currently a PhD Candidate exploring transformational encounters in art galleries and museums. Naomi has a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts, a Masters of Creative Writing and a Post Graduate Degree in High School Visual Arts Education.
Naomi is being co-supervised between Western Sydney University and The University of Cambridge in the UK. Her thesis is currently titled ‘On The Road to Damascus: Theorising transformational art encounters’. She has presented at multiple national and international conferences and was an invited presenter at the 19th World Congress of The International Society for Education Through Art. (InSEA) at UBC Vancouver, she presented a one hour interactive performance lecture of her peer reviewed article, ‘Embodied, emboldened and recursive art appreciation - exploring identity through contemporary art’, published in Australian Art Education, Volume 39, Issue 2 (2018). In 2018 Naomi published, 'A Game Approach to Art Appreciation: Encountering art with a plucky, brave and spirited disposition', in the peer reviewed journal, Australia Art Education Vol 39. No.1. In 2017, Naomi was the co-recipient of The Pat Parker Memorial Residency with Blacktown Arts Center that resulted in a major public art installation of over 2000 tissue paper dandelions created in collaboration with the Blacktown community. In 2013, Naomi won the Museums and Galleries NSW International Fellowship to Dallas Museum of Art for her work in art education and her curation of interactive, interdisciplinary, family-focused art exhibitions. Naomi’s own creative practice is inter-disciplinary, including traditional forms such as painting and drawing as well as performance, projection and sound works. Her most recent projects include Veil of Wishes, 2017 - 2018, Truth and Dare at Lost Paradise Festival, 2015, and in 2014, Truth and Dare on the Dual Caminos and the Dorothy Postcard Project with Dallas Museum of Art.
CV
Publications
2023 The making of a Golden reliquary in the art of Catherine O’Donnell, Essay excerpt
2023 Exhibition essay: Kate Dorrough | 27 July - 12 August 2023 | Arthouse Gallery
2023 Lecture Series How to start a love affair with art, Art Gallery of New South Wales
2023 Echoes of my grandmother in the art of Clarice Beckett at Geelong Gallery, Essay
2022 Writing about the work of Dianne Gall at Nanda Hobbs and Maddison Gibbs and Salllvage, (Rowan Savage) at Cement Fondu
2022 A thoughtful provocation – the work of David Griggs, Essay
2022 Giddy Up: Amplifying the tension between representation and abstraction, Essay
2022 Witnessing, by Alicia Henry: A personal essay by Naomi McCarthy, Kamloops Gallery, British Columbia Canada, Essay
2022 Juliana Góngora Rojas – Arrullos, essay
2022 An unrestrained response - the work of Abdull Abdullah, Essay
2022 Jo Bertini: Paintings of awe and intimacy, Essay
2022 Everything is different: Contemplating loss and the work of Paraskevy Begetis at Articulate Project Space, Essay
2022 McCarthy, N. and Ryan, E. Chapter 9 ‘Performing the ethics of chat and shared work in the ‘Zoom-i-Verse’ in Burnard, P., Mackinlay, E., Rousell, D., & Dragovic, T. (Eds.) (2022). Doing rebellious research in and beyond the academy. Brill.
2021 The Zoom Room Rebels: Worlding and Writing a Diffractive Ethics with Performance of Research in the Zoom-I-Verse, submitted book chapter in edited volume, Doing Rebellious Research: Performing Difference in and beyond the Academy, (Co-authored Chapter with E Ryan, submitted for publication in 2022)
2021 Sidney Teodoruk + Neil Tomkins - Holy Mountain Catalogue introduction
2020 The Ethics of Performativity and the Effects and Affects of Anonymity in Online Platforms: A reflection on ACRGs January happening, ‘(Academic) Writing as/with/through Performance’, Guest Blogger Cambridge Arts and Creativities Research Group
2020 Blog: How to start a love affair with art - ongoing
2020 Warwick Fuller - Chasing the Light catalogue essay
2019 Hardenvale - our home in Absurdia, Family and primary schools learning and engagement resource, touring exhibition
2018 Embodied, Emboldened and Recursive Art Appreciation - Exploring identity through contemporary art, Australian Art Education Journal, Volume 39, Ed. 2
2018 A Game Approach to Art Appreciation, Australian Art Education, Journal, Volume 39, Ed. 1
2018 Landing Points: Race, Place and Identity - The Art of Interpretation - Pedagogic Resource
2018 Summer Exhibition Suite - Art Appreciation - Pedagogic Resource for Primary School Teachers
2014/16 Dandelion Projects Blog
2015 Education Kit Home Front: 100 Year Anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign
2013 'Playing as Learning in Art Galleries', Museums Australia, vol 22(2), p14
2013 Singing from Haunted Houses (unpublished manuscript - contemporary fiction)
2012 'Perfect, Dark, Red Bubble', Trunk Series: Blood Anthology, Boccalatte Designs
2011 'Wallpaper Stains', Aesthetica Creative Works Annual, 2011
2011 Works of Art are not Mirrors, Albury Arts Centre
2010 The Stations of St Jerome, New York University, Students’ Salon
2009 'Silken Tongue', Trunk Series: Hair Anthology, Boccalatte Designs
2009 'Light and Shadow', Venetian Visions, Blacktown Arts Centre
2008 'Weetbix on the Road to Damascus', The University of Sydney Creative Writing Students Salon
2008 'Katoomba to Mudgee via Oberon', Australian Cyclist May – June 2008
2007 'On Monday my stepfather died', Phoenix, Sydney University’s Writers Journal
2006 'The Human Show', The Human Show, Legge Gallery
2006 Naomi’s Wonderground, TVS, writer, producer & presenter
2006 Naomi’s Underground, Penrith Valley Radio, writer, producer & presenter
Creative Projects/Awards/Symposiums
2023 How to start a love affair with art, lecture series AGNSW
2023 In the Lobby, Single lecture part of Art Now Lecture series Art Now in Meers Hall AGNSW (new building)
2023 Conference keynote, Curating experience, art as invitation and provocation, AIS, Designing for Creativity - reframing Visual Arts Practice
2021 Performative pedagogies: ‘A wonderfully clumsy form of democracy, Makers and Scholars Panel Member WSU Symposium
2021 We are all Golden Tiles, By George Exhibition, Hellenic Studies Centre
2021 Exploring the potential of (inter)cultural mediation as threshold practice in art gallery and museum practices, Kaleidoscope Education Conference, Cambridge University
2020 One the Road to Damascus: Theorising transformational encounters in art galleries and museums, Auto ethnographic Seminar, Western Sydney University
2020 Art as Catalyst, Sculpting Change, Education Symposium, Cambridge University, UK
2020 Art as Catalyst, Lightening Talk, Fifteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, Galway, Ireland
2020 Using Contemporary art as research, Ignite talk, Kaleidoscope Conference, Faculty of Education, The University of Cambridge UK
2020 Demonstrating and theorising the development of shared narratives through embodied art encounters, International Conference on Narrative, New Orleans
2019 Embodied, Emboldened and Recursive Art Appreciation - Exploring identity through contemporary art, Australian Art Education Journal, Performance lecture at the 19th World Congress of The International Society for Education Through Art. (InSEA) at UBC Vancouver
2018 AAANZ Conference; Aesthetic Politics and Histories, Performance Lecture: Art Appreciation - Would you like fries with that?
2018 The Ideal Home Audio Blog Project, Penrith Regional Gallery
2018 Imagine Award, Engagement Programs, Tactile, Highly Commended
2018 Critical Animal Research Symposium, Pop-Up Research Lab and the Lab Reloaded
2017 - 2018 Veil of Wishes, Public Art Installation, Blacktown
2017 Pat Parker Memorial Residency, Blacktown Arts Centre
2016 Artist assistant for Catherine O’Donnell, Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial
2015/18 The Art School, Drawing Programs for Children
2015 Wings of Desire, Interactive Public Art Project, Strathfield Fair
2015 Pop Up Truth and Dare, Lost Paradise Festival, Dandelion Projects
2014 Truth and Dare on the Dual Caminos, Dandelion Projects
2014 The Dorothy Postcard Project, 3C, Dallas Museum of Art
2013 Museums and Galleries NSW, International Fellowship, Dallas Museum of Art
2010 Dripstone, Elizabeth Farm, Historic Houses, Parramatta
2009 Writing residency, Elizabeth Farm, Parramatta
2006 Two Corporeal Bodies, Tapp Gallery, Sydney
Employment
2021 - 2022 Manager Membership Engagement, Art Gallery New South Wales
2002-2020 Manager Education, Penrith Regional Gallery
2015 -2019 Producer and Mentor Professional Development Programs for Early Childhood Educators
2014 Curator, Lewers Learning Centre
Colour and Light, 31 May - 24 August 2014
Green – Environmental Explorations, 30 August - 16 November
2013 Curator, Lewers Learning Centre
Birds, 1 March – 18 May 2013
Story, 25 May – 15 September
Scissors, Paper, Rock (the boat), 21 September - 21 November
2007 - 2012 Producer and curator, Snapshot International Teenager's Photographic Prize
2009 - 2012 Festival Director, Sizzle Inclusive Arts Festival
Truth and Dare on the Dual Caminos
Camino de Santiago - Dandelion Projects
15 September - 3 November 2014
The Inaugural Dandelion Project
Camino Walkers aka Pilgrims:
Naomi McCarthy -Walked the Camino Frances from St-Jean-Pied-De-Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain
Shirley Daborn - Walked a Camino in daily life in Australia
Truth and Dare Animateurs*
Shaun Tan - writer and artist, Kate Mitchell - artist, Kendal Murray - artist
Phil Beadle - writer and educator, Rita Golden Gelman - writer and traveller
Nick Earls - writer, Lloyd Niccol - engineer and project manager
Project Outline:
For Truth and Dare on the Dual Caminos, seven animateurs were enlisted to offer seven truths, seven dares and one double dare to be enacted by two pilgrims, one walking a Camino in daily life in Australia and one walking the Camino Frances to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Enlisting seven different animateurs meant that every day for seven weeks our two pilgrims were prepared to have their daily lives influenced in unpredictable ways by seven different sensibilities. The proffered Truths and Dares bundled into seven weekly offerings were unwrapped Monday morning of each week. Both pilgrims are known to have warm personalities and robust senses of humour although one of the pilgrims is by nature more reserved than the other. Both pilgrims had fun and experienced moments of revelation, pathos and connection; connection that may very well have been brought about by the willingness of the pilgrims to be open to people both like and unlike themselves.
Project Background:
Truth or dare is a game for almost any age but is often most interesting to young people from mid to late primary school, through high school and into the early 20s. It is most engaging when people are still curious about each other in terms of the truth section and when they are testing boundaries and embarrassment levels in the dare section. Adults don't often play this game - maybe we have become less interested and curious about each other and maybe we are not so interested in testing the limits of our bravery in the dare section. Although, there is an on-line game of truth or dare for adults that is popular. Truth and Dare on the Dual Caminos sprouted from a desire to conflate a certain childlike gameness and sense of mischief to the endurance game of life, compressed within a nominated time frame. Seven weeks, seven truths and seven dares became the scaffold for the project.
Reflection
To complete my Truth and Dare on the Dual Camino Project. I answered, animateur, Phil Beadles final truth.
Are you Happy?
Finishing the camino in Santiago de Compostela - looking very happy ( back row of the photo below) and I was in that moment indeed happy, but I was also conflicted about transitioning out of pilgrim mode back into normal life. The beauty of the Camino is the simplicity of the aim, the easy and always available camaraderie, the exposure and immersion in nature, the opportunity to spend six - eight (or more) hours a day under the sky, following the contours of the land moving through the landscape at a very human pace. A calmness descends on you knowing that, it is all a privilege, a gift if you will. Knowing that it is a movable feast and that it too will finish is also important because it makes you take advantage of what is offered, it also allows you to walk away from anyone and anything that you don't like, except yourself. The one constant and inescapable truth - you take yourself with you wherever you go - my best advice about that one is to make friends with yourself, forgive your transgressions and in being generous about your own failings learn to be generous and forgiving to others. Open yourself to life, living it as a participant, be gracious in your attitude to what life offers, not distant and judgmental, which is a 'safe' and cowardly position. My take home lessons from the Camino: be brave; be kind; be open to what life offers; be thankful and give praise for the bounty of the world and being given a life to live. Be careful with tender hearts both our own and others and remember that our actions always count. All of them.
*Animateur: a person who enlivens or encourages something, especially a promoter of artistic projects.
