Naomi Frears

Archived Paintings from Latest Exhibition (January 2009):







Catalogue Essay
‘Art’s task is to contribute to evolution, to encourage the mind, to guarantee a detached view of social changes, to conjure up positive energies, to create Sensuousness, to reconcile reason and instinct, to research possibilities and to destroy clichés and prejudices. Pipilotti Rist, interview in Frieze, September 2008 In the work of Naomi Frears the reconciliation of reason and instinct (cited by Pipilotti Rist as one of the ‘tasks of art’ and currently written up on Frears’ studio wall) is joined by another necessary task – the reconciliation involved in starting and finishing a painting. It seems the end is often quite different from the first idea. Between the two there is a process and in considering some of the things that happen, clues may possibly be found to her enigmatic but perfectly lucid paintings. Frears’ given discipline is to work with what would generally be called a figure-ground relationship and drawing is a vital component. The figure, or head, is against a ground that is at once picture plane, material paint and open space. This pictorial space gives room for thought, for recognition of the figure’s state and language, often isolated and ephemeral against its defining ground. Subtle connotations are invited or allowed to come through. In the case of figure or head Frears mobilises an extraordinary emotional range and fleeting yet very precise visual cultural references. In the case of the ground, more concrete formal issues are deployed. For both motif and surface Frears uses many sources, from her own sketchbooks to paintings and sculpture, buildings and views seen. Recently, some works have been based on a fine natural linen printed in the toile-de-jouy style with a deep-red rococo design of curling acanthus leaves, providing an exotic garden setting for her figure. It is characteristic of Frears to use imagery and settings she comes across, implying collage but often expressing them directly in paint. This is one of the things that lends her work a mysterious echo of intaglio printmaking, of a historic fine art tradition re-invented. Frears says she loves to start a new painting – ‘but then it all goes horribly wrong’. Following a quite definite and convincing impulse, she sets out with an image only to find it too fragile to succeed, better obscured, better scraped off and replaced with something else. A shaky excitement attends some stages, at other times complete despondency sets in. Quick effects are mistrusted, laborious and complex surfaces are welcomed as a pleasure to paint. There are no slippery gestures of a loaded brush but dense dry layering rather like fabric or traces of printing. She draws with a delicate painterly line or paints the form of a head like a sculpture emerging from deep chiaroscuro. Eventually, following lengthy consideration, a painting is accepted as finished. The completed image conveys her engagement with the life of the human heart, with loving retrospection, often melancholy and poignant. Though Frears’ painting is usually dependent on a figure, a head or some simple motif, these are not her only or essential concern. They serve the painting, whose completed reality is independent of any implied narrative. She puts the paint to use through the process of working and constantly re-working, until a complete thing ‘happens’. This process seems to anchor what would otherwise be susceptible to doubt. It supports the idea that her paintings are as much about painted line or a painted space or the material density of paint itself, as they are about an allusive figure. It is a process of removal as much as things emerging: she reduces her means to only the most acutely necessary. As Jasper Johns said, ‘it has to be about what you can’t avoid saying’. Elizabeth Knowles 2008
Education and Qualifications 1982-86 Sunderland College of Art. BA (Hons) and Printmaking Prize 1981-82 Loughborough College of Art. Foundation Exhibitions 2009 Beaux Arts Bath (solo) 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 College of Art Sunderland University Cornwall County Council Royal Cornwall Museum Truro Slaughter and May London Truro School Publications 1993 Twenty-two Painters…. Marion Whybrow 2001 Behind the canvas Sarah Brittain / Simon Cook, Truran 2002 ARTNSA Newlyn Society of Artists 2003 Catching the Wave Tom Cross, Halsgrove 2006 Art about St.Ives Roy Ray and Colin Orchard Features 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- Discovering Cornwall’s Creative Scene (June 2004)

	Naomi Frears
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