The Infinite Skies Above
of Naima Karim

This article was originally published on Hue & Eye.

About Naima Karim

Naima Karim was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1976. She grew up in a creative environment, as her father, a doctor, and teacher in med school would create homemade furniture during the weekends while her mother would sew and embroid or make dolls. So Naima also used to paint, sew and embroid as a kid. As manual creative projects have always been present in Naima’s habits she later pursued a Bachelor in Fine Arts. Naima then got married early and moved with her husband in the Netherlands in 2002. Here she decided to study Fashion Design and Pattern Making at the Artemis Mode Academie to gain her degree in 2005.

Right after her wedding, though, an extreme event happened in Naima’s life. She has been diagnosed with the Guillain Barre Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that left her completely paralyzed. It took her more than a year to start walking again. This event happened during her academic career, and despite this, she persisted in finishing her degree. But all of those moments passed being in bed, watching the outside world and dreaming of running through grass fields made her a peculiar observer and led her to a special attraction for the sky and birds. “When I was lying in bed and couldn’t move any of my limbs, my only dream was to run across the grass field and look at the beautiful sky. Since then, the sky has been a big inspiration to me. It has no limit, and it is so big”, she explains.

Naima was already keen on noticing the big multitude of colors a landscape may have, as she was painting since her childhood, and this allowed her to get straight to the emotional level. To Naima, everything up in the sky has romance: the nights’ hues, the sunrise and sunset shades, the bird flying next to the clouds, the rain, and it’s mirrored effects.

“When I paint big skies, I feel free with no limitations, and I enjoy every movement on the canvas with my brush strokes,” she says.

Naima gets her inspiration from Van Gough, Ruisdael, Monet, and their unique color techniques, as well as Mark Rothko’s and Willem de Kooning. She likes the focus on distinctive details and emotions to emphasize the power of light and beauty. Her aim indeed is to show people how much beauty we have access to in this world, and how sharing it’s an essential part of being here. Naima well understood the importance of taking care of one another, and she will always be grateful to her husband, family, and friend to have taken care of her during her illness. Painting to her enriches the possibility of divulging this happy message.

Nowadays, Naima paints most of her day and also teaches painting classes to both children and adults. Her spare time is then devoted to being a wife and a mother of two.

Although Naima loves painting and listening to music – without which she won’t even start her day – she is recently undergoing an installation piece for which she doesn’t reveal much, only that it is for an exceptional cause to remember very special people.

In her future then, she sees herself continuing to work as an artist in search of inspiration around. So stay tuned to discover more about her up-and-coming art by visiting her website.