|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One cannot help but be awed by the former fishing-net loft that is Naomi Frears’ studio, set on one of the country’s most outstanding beaches, its huge windows perfect for ocean sunsets with the reassuring rhythm of the Por thmeor surf rolling on to the beach mere yards away.This is a room with a view. However the environmental distractions function only as the sights and sounds of breathing. This painter’s industriousness is evident all around her.A variety of canvasses are hung or lean or are stacked, sketchbooks are opened, some employed in numerous works in progress; inspirational quotes are scrawled on the studio walls; the heady fumes from working in oil are virulent and diffuse. Often on a pre-exhibition visit it is only having left Frears’ studio that one realises that no paintings have been completed!
This is part of Frears’ modus operandi. Hers is a necessarily abstract making process, somewhat at odds with the stillness and calm that seems to surface in the finished images. She relishes, no, loves her work, using not just every inch of her studio’s spaciousness, but also squeezing every minute from her working day, especially in preparation for an exhibition. I am reminded of print-maker Rob Ryan’s recent remark when asked if there was a piece of advice he had for young artists trying to break through – ‘Find an understanding partner’.
This Frears has done in her husband John, who in various states of recognisability pops up as the main male protagonist in her work.That is not to say that this is a planned and conscious choice of subject matter. More it is connected to the essentiality of the work, the paring down of the solid core of the artist’s emotional life and inspiration, inevitably involving her immediate family. This essentiality is also reflected in the way she makes sense of the world through form, just as a sculptor would. So her obsessive drawing and love for sculptural form gives her the freedom to bring these figures to life in the confines of her own studio. It is a freedom that is taken very seriously. Consequently a neoclassical sculpture (by Antonio Canova, quickly sketched by Frears in Passagno museum) appears to resemble her daughter Ella in the painting ‘Don’t Look Back’. In this canvas the form is enclosed in a rectangular dais-like architectural structure.One could postulate that the open cage-like construction may perhaps represent a parental yearning to hold on to or protect her daughter, who has recently left home and who also appears to be turning her head. However the cage is open and the figure unbound (note the title).The stark bright colour of figure and structure is in sharp contrast to the amorphous unknown depths of the dark ground.
That said I am not sure how rational one needs to be in reading this, or any of Frears’ paintings. Interpretation may be more a matter of semiotics than reason, for in the abstract process of making her work, Frears will eschew the easy route to the finished painting. The way her figures embed themselves in her fields of colour owes much to her background as a print-maker. She is less concerned with the verisimilitude of flesh tones, or how light plays on figures and objects – her principle obsession, the sine qua non of the work, is composition. Experimentation and incongruity are central, governed by instinct, and a contrariness to compose work which is not just right, but ‘uneasy right’, or as Gerhard Richter put it, to ‘bring together in a living and viable way, the most different and the most contradictory elements in the greatest possible freedom’.
So figurative elements are introduced to space on the canvas. Sometimes they stay, or partly stay. More often they are rubbed out, only to reappear at a later date as newly discovered half-worlds under a partially erased layer of colour. Incongruous objects and architectural features appear where they have no business, next to an Italianate sculpted head or profile. Spaces that suggest depth appear on the same canvas as flat space.This is freedom. ‘In every single piece of work there is something I have never tried before, ever’, remarks the artist. Not being able to map the journey is a necessary part of the excitement and thrill of the process.
The daily practice, the intuitive experience, the craft and the graft can at times produce in Frears the feeling that gold flows from her hands. At other times, as she deftly quotes writer Diana Norman, ‘I feel like a drunk navigating furniture’. It is this lack of restriction that is the adventure leading to what James Joyce called ‘the portals of discovery’. Frears is a sculptor who through an abstract process informed by printmaking paints figurative paintings. Her work dares and tests and attempts to resolve her intuitive instincts. The most rational stage of all in her making process is to decide when she is finished. It is gratifying to witness the results of these hard won endeavours – emotionally driven but never overly sentimental, joyous yet tinged with melancholy, and so skilfully crafted as to exude a poetic simplicity.
Aidan Quinn, February 2011
|
|||
|
Education and Qualifications 1982-86 Sunderland College of Art. BA (Hons) and Printmaking Prize 1981-82 Loughborough College of Art. Foundation Exhibitions 2009, 2011 Beaux Arts Bath (solo) 2010 Millennium Gallery, St.Ives 2007 Art Now Cornwall, Tate Gallery, St.Ives, Cornwall Art London, Chelsea, London with Beaux Arts Bath London Art Fair, Islington, London 1999-2007 New Millennium Gallery, St.Ives (5 solo shows) 2006 Artists from the Porthmeor Studios, St.Ives Society of Artists, Cornwall From the Edge, Sherborne House, Dorset London Art Fair, Islington, London Porthmeor Printmakers Show and Porthmeor Studios portfolio, Tate Café, St.Ives, Cornwall 2005 Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Coningsby Gallery (Sam Pease and Linda Stoneman), London Edgar Modern Gallery, Bath 2004 Critic’s Choice (John Russell Taylor) Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Art London and Lighter Brighter Porthmeor Belgrave Gallery, St.Ives, Cornwall London Art Fair, Islington, London Drawing? Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall 2003 Critic’s Choice, (Joan Bakewell) Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Conflict and Resolution, Harbour House Gallery, Devon ID, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall ART 2003, London 2002 The Corporate Connoisseurs, (Sam Pease) London A View of St.Ives, Belgrave Gallery, St.Ives, Cornwall 2001 From the Heart, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Freelance Show, Tate Studio, St.Ives, Cornwall A View of St.Ives, Belgrave Gallery, Cornwall 2000 St.Ives Collyer Bristow, London Cornwall Works Art for Interiors, London Bank Street Gallery, Sevenoaks, Kent 1999 The New St.Ives Artists Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery, Kent Freelance Show, Tate St.Ives, Cornwall White Gallery, Brighton Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Living On The Line, The Count House, Botallack, Cornwall 1998 Glasshouse Gallery, Truro (solo) ART 98, London Off The Wall, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Private Chambers, Truro Crown Court, Cornwall New Millennium Gallery, St. Ives, Cornwall 1997 Spectrum, Contemporary British Printmaking, Manila, Philippines Freelance and Print Show, Tate St.Ives, Cornwall Cornwall Now, Art for Interiors, Cornwall Lineart, Ghent, Belgium Glasgow Contemporary Art Fair ART 97, London 1996 20th Century British Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London ART 96, London Freelance Show, Tate St.Ives, Cornwall St.Ives Now, Collyer Bristow, London
Collections Falmouth Art Gallery; Wilson Collection Sunderland University Cornwall County Council Royal Cornwall Museum Truro Slaughter and May London Truro School Falmouth College of Art Publications 2009 Artists’ Studios, MJ Long. 2007 Art Now Cornwall, Susan Daniel-McElroy,Tate Publications. On the Very Edge of the Ocean, Ben Tufnell,Tate Publications 2006 Art About St Ives, Roy Ray & Colin Orchard. 2003 Catching the Wave,Tom Cross, Halsgrove. 2002 ARTNSA, Newlyn Society of Artists. 2001 Behind the Canvas, Sarah Brittain / Simon Cook,Truran. 1993 Twenty-two Painters … MarionWhybrow.
Features 2010 Art In Cornwall, BBC Four. ‘Art and Graft’, FTWeekend Magazine, photos by Rosie Hallam. 2009 Filmed for Memory Bay as featured artist. Interviewed by ARD, German radio. 2008 Telegraph Magazine, interview by Emma Thomas, 23 August. Featured artist in film by Ray Bird about Porthmeor Studios. Featured in Merian, German magazine. 2006 Featured artist on Coast, BBC One. Featured artist on Coast (BBC TV) Nov 06 Subject of 'Process' a film by Stuart Lansdowne 05/06 2004 December Guardian Artist of the Month. Elected member of Newlyn Society of Artists 1999 Member of Porthmeor Printmakers, since 1991 Painting chosen for cover of Write for Life by Nicki Jackowska. Commissioned to design gallery activity packs by Tate St.Ives (1998)
Guardian Supplement
'Living on the
Edge-
Teaching, residencies & societies 2011 Visiting lecturer, MA Fine Art, University College Falmouth. 2007–2010 Leading printmaking projects at Falmouth Art Gallery. 1993–2010 Tate St Ives. Regular collaborator with the education department, devising and leading practical sessions with teenagers, adults and specialist groups in gallery spaces at Tate St Ives. 1995–2010 Newlyn Art Gallery. Involved in leading various courses including printmaking and ‘Drawing a Painting’. 1995–2008 Porthmeor PrintWorkshop, St Ives.Teaching and co-ordinating printmaking courses in monoprinting and collagraph. 1999 Elected member of Newlyn Society of Artists. 2001 The King’s School,Worcester, artist in residence. 2002, 05, 07 Vyner’s School, London, artist in residence. 1991 Founder member of Porthmeor Printmakers.
|
|||
|
|||
