As a mother of two living in the jungle of Peru, Naomi Toma still has time for her digital art. She specializes in art therapy and is inspired by nature, healing and the experience of love. She moved from Lima to the jungle eight years ago with her family to escape the pace of urban life and to get closer to nature, which also gave her the freedom to create more art.
A friend mentioned NFTs to her in 2021, but she didn’t understand crypto art’s intricacies. She minted her first piece in February 2022 on the Polygon blockchain. Her first sale happened quickly, and she started making more connections to different communities and continued minting her work.
She is grateful for the opportunity to create art in her home with her daughters beside her.
She is inspired to create by the desire to heal herself, using nature as medicine for the soul, and searching for the experience of light in the heart, which is love.
The strongest influence on her art is 19th century Austrian painter Gustav Klimt for the tenderness and Vincent van Gogh for sensibility.
We discussed her work, the colors, the foliage from her region, and the fact that her face appears in many of her illustrations. She said she uses her background in psychology as inspiration for the trials and tribulations of life. Facing our fears, finding love, healing from trauma and having compassion.
Being an NFT artist has given her a new revenue stream, helps her to pay bills and allows her to support her artist friends. She does most of her collecting on the Tezos blockchain.
She did an open edition as a fundraiser for Turkey and Peru around the theme of love. It is called Soulmates.
Her favorite artist? She said all artists are fabulous but that artists emulating their inner world are her favorite. Her favorite NFT artists are dielamaharanie, tiffatronn, deekaymotion and SeungdoHyun.
Her favorite color is aqua/turquoise, which reminds her of beaches in the Caribbean.
She said she’d like to see more respect in the NFT ecosystem, fewer prejudices and to be careful to not perpetuate the biases already in the world.
She recently launched her collection “We Are Nature” and is promoting that series. Beyond that, she said she wants to take time to enjoy life and have fun.
The message she wants people to get from her work is to have a deeper love that evokes kindness and compassion for self and others.
Listen to the full interview here!
Follow Naomi on Twitter here!