Naomi Wanjiku is an extremely successful and incredibly intriguing Fashion Artist. Naomi studied at the University of Nairobi in Kenya and at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been in her field for over 20 years creating works that are predominantly wall hanging structures. Her fashion art revolves around both wearable items and sculptures. The sculptures are created from nontraditional materials such as sheet metal and steel wire. Sheet metal, known in Swahili as Mabati, is ubiquitous in Kenya and is particularly associated with Mabati Women’s Groups of the ‘60s. These grassroots groups organized in order to improve their communities, by upgrading the roofs of their homes using sheet metal. Naomi observes the success of their efforts in harvesting the water from the new roofs and the consequent aging of the material itself. She mirrors this aging effect in her own artistic process by weathering the surfaces of her materials. Her wearable fashion art combines a mixtures of materials from wires to sheet metal and gained her a nomination for Fashion Artist of the Year in 2018 and 2019 at the San Antonio Fashion Awards. 

“I am a woman of color and an immigrant. I have been creating my own fashion art since I was a girl growing up in Kenya. Today, I intertwine my country’s heritage with my fashion art and am very passionate about mentoring upcoming artists, and representing Texas in my shows in major art capitals of the world.”