Naoko 2 (Untitled)

Naoko 2 (Untitled) is the second lithograph in Simonova's pairing of the same figural subject, produced by the same razor-blade extraction technique on a lithographic-crayon-blackened stone. The figure is recovered from the dark ground through scraped passages of varying pressure, with the contour, hair, and tonal modeling articulated by what the blade removes rather than what crayon adds. Read against Naoko 1, the second print is less a duplicate than a re-recording — a return to the same memory of the sitter handled with different marks, slightly altered weight, or shifted scraped intervals. This practice of sequential re-encounter is central to Simonova's larger body of work: the print and the drawing treated as parallel investigations, the figure approached as something rehearsed rather than possessed. The Bulgarian-born, Portland-based artist's circulation through international print-exchange exhibitions, including projects in Japan, sits behind the choice of subject; the named referent in 'Naoko' anchors the abstract subtractive process in a specific person.