Why I Paint Wild Women and Wolves: The Story Behind My Wild Woman Art
Updated: Sep 26
Naïma Namaste is a French contemporary artist and oil painter whose work explores freedom, femininity, transformation, and our connection to the wild. Inspired by wolves, wild landscapes, and the feminine spirit, she creates paintings that invite women to reconnect with their own strength, intuition, and wildness.
There are certain things we are drawn to long before we understand why. For me, it has always been the wildnerness...The mountains. The forests. The landscapes of Canada, USA, the Wild Taïga. The feeling of standing somewhere so vast and untouched that, for a moment, you remember how small you are...you remember the wild within you.
And then there are wolves.I have loved wolves for as long as I can remember.
I was fascinated by them as a child. I read books about wolves, watched documentaries about wolves and bears, and wanted to understand everything about them...the way they lived, their family bonds, their instincts, their relationship with the pack.
But my connection with wolves always felt different...It wasn't just fascination. It felt almost instinctual. I didn't understand why at the time. I simply knew that something about wolves spoke to something deep inside me.
Why I Have Always Been Drawn to Wolves
I think my love for wild nature started very early in my life. Nature was always a place where I could breathe. When life felt difficult or overwhelming, I found comfort in being outside, surrounded by trees, plants, open spaces and the little piece of wilderness I had close to home.
I was also fascinated by animals, especially wolves and bears. One of my favorite films when I was young was the French movie L'Ours. It deeply moved me and made me even more curious about bears. and wildlife and the world they lived in.
But there was one experience that stayed with me more than anything.
I remember seeing a pack of wolves in a zoo in the southwest of France. They were trying to escape their enclosure, and I remember looking into the eyes of one of them.
I could feel that something was wrong. They were not meant to be there.
I remember feeling something break inside me.
Wolves are meant to roam. To move through forests and mountains. To live with their pack. To follow their instincts.
That day, I made a promise to myself:
If I ever see wolves again, it will be in the wild.
I didn't know how or when.
But I knew I wanted to see them where they belonged.
My First Journey to See Wolves in the Wild
Around 2010, I discovered a documentary about Yellowstone and started following photographers who spent their time there photographing wolves.
I remember thinking:
I need to go there.
I didn't just want to see a wolf.
I wanted to see wolves being wolves.
Running. Hunting. Living together. Free.
At the time, I was in my twenties and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
I was working in a shop while also trying to build something creative on the side through graphic design.
But my job had become a very difficult place for me. I was being bullied by my boss, and eventually I reached a point where I couldn't continue. I remember meeting a woman there who told me that I should leave. She made me feel that perhaps I was meant for something else.
And eventually, I listened.
When I left my job, my husband and I decided it was finally time to go.
We went to Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park.
How Yellowstone Changed My Life
That trip changed something in me.
I remember arriving in Yellowstone and being completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape.
The mountains.
The rivers.
The bison.
The bears.
The immense wilderness.
And then, finally, I saw wolves.
Not behind glass.
Not behind a fence.
Wild.
I watched them roaming, hunting and living together.
I was surrounded by passionate people who, just like me, had dedicated themselves to observing and photographing these incredible animals. I even had the opportunity to meet a biologist who had been involved in the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone.
It was an experience I will never forget.
But looking back now, I realize that I wasn't only discovering wolves.
I was discovering something in myself.
Freedom.
For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could breathe.
And somehow, the wolves became connected to that feeling.
I thought I was going to Yellowstone to see wolves.
In a way, I found myself.
How Wolves Led Me Back to Painting
When I came home, I knew I needed to follow my heart more.
I started painting again.
Very slowly.
I bought some watercolor paints, and one of the first things I painted was a wolf with the Grand Teton Mountains behind it.
It wasn't about creating a perfect painting.
It was about reconnecting.
With the creative little girl I had been.
With the dream of becoming an artist that I had carried for so many years.
I was still working and figuring out my life, but something had shifted inside me.
I started imagining myself as a painter again.
I remember having a photograph of one of the wolves from the Druids pack in Yellowstone. I turned the photograph into a beautiful canvas print and kept looking at it.
And I remember thinking:
I need to paint this.
My Love for Canada, Wolves and Wild Places
My connection with wild places continued to grow.
In 2013, my husband and I traveled to Canada for the first time. We wanted to discover the incredible landscapes of the Canadian Rockies and, of course, hoped to see wolves.
Canada immediately became one of those places that stayed in my heart. We met an incredible soul and friend, Randy Smith whom guided us in the Canadian rockies, show us tracks of wolves and shared stories of bears and mountain lions... he gifted me one of his favorite books about wolves; We were lucky to see during that trip a beautiful black lone wolf. A moment i will remember forever.
I returned to Yellowstone in 2017, and in 2019 I went back to Vancouver Island, hoping to see and learn more about the coastal wolves.
Over the years, traveling to wild places became an important part of my life.
I was always looking for wolves and bears, but I think I was also looking for something within myself.
Every journey brought me closer to myself and my wild woman within.
From Wolf Paintings to Women and Wolves
When I eventually decided to take my art seriously, wolves naturally became part of my work.
In 2021, I dedicated myself fully to painting and spent a year developing my skills through an online art program. I returned to sketching, learned oil painting more seriously, worked on my technique and created my first portfolio.
My first professional series was a series of wolf paintings.
I painted coastal wolves and became particularly connected to the story of Takaya.
But as my painting developed, I started painting portraits too.
And eventually, I felt ready to paint something I had imagined for a very long time.
A woman and a wolf.
My very first woman-and-wolf painting was actually a painting of myself with a wolf, which I created in 2020.
At the time, I didn't know something that would later feel almost magical to me.
While I was learning oil painting in 2021, I became curious about my birth chart and discovered that I had been born under the Wolf Full Moon in January.
And everything suddenly seemed to make sense.
I had been drawn to wolves since childhood.
I had traveled to see them in the wild.
They had helped me reconnect with freedom... They had led me back to painting.
And now they were becoming part of the way I expressed myself as an artist.
Why I Started Painting Wild Women
I didn't want to simply paint women standing next to wolves.
I wanted to paint the connection between them.
For me, the wolf represents something that already exists inside the woman.
Her instinct.
Her freedom.
Her resilience.
Her strength.
Her wildness.
Her ability to trust herself.
The woman and the wolf become almost one.
And that is what my Wild Woman paintings are really about. They are not just paintings of women and animals. They are about coming home to yourself.
What Women and Wolves Symbolize in My Art
The wolf has always represented freedom to me.
But it also represents resilience, instinct, loyalty and connection.
And when I place a woman beside a wolf, I see those qualities reflected in her too.
The woman represents the part of us that is becoming.
The part that is learning to trust herself again.
The part that remembers what she wants.
The part that doesn't want to spend the rest of her life living according to everyone else's expectations.
The wolf becomes a reminder:
You already have this within you.
You don't have to become someone else.
You just have to reconnect with the part of yourself you may have forgotten.
My First Woman and Wolf Painting: Warrior
My first true wolf-woman painting was Warrior.
I was listening to Ray LaMontagne's Running with the Wolves, and something clicked.
I knew I had to finally paint the woman and wolf I had imagined for so long.
The woman and the wolf in Warrior are deeply connected. They almost become one spirit.
For me, the painting represents resilience.
And that is something I understand personally.
I have spent much of my life learning how to keep going.
Learning how to find myself again.
Learning how to trust my own path.
Learning that strength doesn't always have to look hard or aggressive.
Sometimes strength is simply continuing.
Sometimes strength is leaving.
Sometimes strength is starting again.
And sometimes strength is refusing to abandon yourself.
That is what Warrior represents to me.
What the Wild Woman Means to Me
To me, being a Wild Woman isn't about being fearless.
It's not about being untamed in some dramatic way.
It's something much quieter.
It's listening to your intuition.
It's trusting yourself.
It's allowing yourself to create.
It's having the courage to change direction.
It's leaving something that no longer feels right.
It's making space for what brings you joy.
It's allowing yourself to want more from your life.
It's choosing yourself.
For me, becoming an artist was part of that journey.
I had spent years believing that becoming a professional artist was something other people could do.
People who were more talented.
People who had gone to art school.
People who had more confidence.
People who knew exactly what they were doing.
I didn't think I was one of those people.
But eventually, I realized that perhaps I didn't need to become someone else.
I needed to come back to myself.
Why I Paint Wild Women Today
My Wild Woman paintings are a continuation of a journey that started long before I ever picked up an oil brush.
They connect the little girl who loved drawing and dreamed of becoming an artist...
The young woman who struggled to find where she belonged...
The woman who spent years working while holding onto a creative dream...
The traveler who went looking for wolves...
The woman who found freedom in wild places...
And the artist I eventually became.
When I paint a woman with a wolf, I'm painting the part of us that wants to be roam free.
The part that wants to create.
The part that wants to trust its instincts.
The part that wants to stop living according to who we're supposed to be and start discovering who we really are.
The Wolves Led Me Back to Myself
Looking back, I don't think it was a coincidence that wolves became such an important part of my life.
They were there when I was a child.
They stayed with me through the years when I was trying to understand who I was.
They led me to Yellowstone.
They introduced me to wild places, passionate people and a feeling of freedom I had been longing for. And eventually, they led me back to painting ... Back to creativity. Back to the dream I had as a little girl.
Maybe that's why I continue to paint them. Because every time I paint a woman and a wolf, I am reminded of that journey.
Of how long it took me to trust myself.
Of how many times I thought I was too far behind.
Of how many times I wondered if my dream was even possible.
And of how beautiful it can be when you finally allow yourself to follow the feeling that has been there all along.
Maybe your wildness was never gone. Maybe you simply learned to hide it.
And maybe, somewhere beneath everything you've been taught to be, there is still a part of you waiting to be free.
Naïma
stay wild!
Naïma
About the Artist
Naima Namaste is a French contemporary artist whose original paintings explore the profound relationship between women, nature and the wild. Inspired by symbolism, intuition and the beauty of the natural world, she creates soulful, collectible artworks that invite moments of reflection, connection and wonder. Every painting is created by hand in her atelier in the south of France.
