NAOMI FREARS

Naomi Frears in situ. Photo credit: Alban Roinard

Wish You Were Here is a quiet painting. The title describes the feeling of missing someone even though they are present.

The painting was lots of other things before it became this small figure caught in the act of turning away from or towards me. She is loosely based on an image of Flora in a fresco in Pompeii.

I remember painting everything black at some point which stopped the painting in its tracks and forced me to begin again but this time with white paint which turned the black a cool slate grey.

In terms of previous images that have come and gone on this painting, I can still see half a figure with one arm down and one raised behind the (no longer visible) head at the bottom of the image.

When it was finished the director of Tate St Ives chose it for inclusion in an exhibition at the gallery which was fantastic and a surprise for a painting that very nearly wasn’t anything.

This is the only work of mine I have ever kept – maybe because the way the figure is moving and the tilt of her head remind me of my daughter. I am going to give her the painting one day.