Naomi Frears
Naomi Frears is a visual artist and filmmaker based in the Porthmeor Studios in St Ives. She works across multiple platforms including painting, printmaking and film and is well known for her enigmatic and subtly haunting paintings. Naomi led our very first Porthmeor Programme and designed the popular course ‘Sketchbook to Studio’ that she ran at St Ives School of Painting.
Through a process of layering and editing, Naomi hunts down the images in her work – paintings that are bold and ambiguous. Alice Spawls writes, ‘Where does the artist possibly start this? A piece of landscape might hold the key, or placing one postcard next to another. Perhaps picking up a canvas that has sat still for a long time; perhaps a breaking out a strong colour to invigorate the day. There are many decisions to be made along the way.’ You can learn more about Naomi and her practice on her website here.
“Teaching has always been an important part of my life as an artist. In conversations with students I am reminded that art is fun as well as being completely engrossing and sometimes frustrating. It is thrilling to watch work developing.
I have been involved in gallery education – leading workshops and giving talks – at Tate St Ives since it opened, at Newlyn Gallery and The Exchange, as well as being a visiting lecturer on various degree courses at Falmouth University.”
What our students say
Just to say how very much I enjoyed and profited from the excellent ‘Time to break the Rules’ by Naomi Frears. It was illuminating, thoughtful, full of insights from a working artist and excellently illustrated with some lovely examples. I already have the two lists of rules (to be kept), given by Naomi, up on my studio wall.
