Naomi Shachar

Best of Show
Nike
by Naomi Shachar

A Horse, a Legend, and a Brush: Naomi Shachar Returns to Tehachapi

There is a moment every painter waits for — when a subject stops being a subject and becomes a calling. For Naomi Shachar, that moment arrived in the form of an Arabian stallion: proud-chested, defiant,

marked across the shoulder with deep crimson patches said to trace a bloodline fourteen centuries old.

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She named him “Nike.”

As ArT 2026 Tehachapi prepares to open, Shachar returns as Featured Artist — not as a newcomer, but as a two-time Best in Show winner whose work has become woven into the spirit of the event.

The Legend in His Coat

Those rust-colored shoulder markings carry one of Islamic history’s most haunting equestrian legends. They trace back to Murtajiz, later known as Zuljanah, the devoted horse of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. As a child, Husayn shared so mystical a bond with the animal that it would lower itself to let the boy climb on — a sight said to move the Prophet to tears, foreseeing his grandson’s fate.

That fate arrived at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE, where the horse shielded Husayn from arrows and stayed at his side until the end. In the legend’s most enduring version, the horse returned alone to camp afterward — bloodied, riderless — delivering in silence the news no words could carry.

For Shachar, painting a descendant of that bloodline meant trying to carry centuries of grief and honor onto canvas. She named the piece after the winged Greek goddess of victory, because what she’d painted was triumph forged from sacrifice. “The challenge was not just to paint,” she says, “but to transfer the horse’s power to the eyes of the beholder.”

A Town That Felt Like Home

Shachar’s bond with Tehachapi began the same way — an unplanned visit in 2023, arranged by a friend, that she describes as love at first sight. The hills, the peaceful town, the people building the exhibition left a lasting mark. She was accepted in both 2024 and 2025, winning Best in Show both years.

What keeps her coming back, she says, is the community itself — and a shared vision with the Tehachapi Commission to grow the exhibition far beyond local borders. Her subject matter fits naturally here: western themes, ranches, cattle, and horses run through both her portfolio and the region’s identity.

Riding Into 2026

Asked what winning means to her, Shachar keeps it simple: it’s proof that others find in her work what she found in it herself.

Somewhere in that answer is the whole of her story — a painter who fell for a town the same way she fell for a horse, all at once and without reservation. And this year, Tehachapi will fall for her all over again.

Naomi Shachar’s work can be viewed at www.nomika.info.