Paris on my Mind: Nai Palm
Naomi Grace Saalfield — known professionally as Nai Palm — is the lead vocalist and guitarist of the Melbourne jazz/funk band Hiatus Kaiyote. I’ve known her since she was in her late teens, and got to know her well when she was performing as a solo artist during a long-standing residency at the Evelyn, where she played every Wednesday night for over three years, often as a support act. With Hiatus Kaiyote, she has gone on to become an award-winning artist, doing tours of Australia, the US, Canada and Europe. It was after one of these tours that she came directly from the airport to my studio in North Melbourne and sat for this portrait. Unfortunately, her band had just been in Paris during the 2015 terrorist attacks, which targeted sports stadiums and entertainment venues, leading to all live performances being cancelled, including Hiatus Kaiyote’s. As a result, during the sitting in my studio in Melbourne, she had an air of disillusionment, which crept into the final work, and is why the work is entitled “Paris on my Mind”.
