Few paintings can claim to be so entirely synonymous with the town of St Ives as those of artist Emma Jeffryes. In her broad and beautiful work, the vivid, ever changing light and lively atmosphere of this famous seaside village are rendered in Emma’s distinctive rainbow coloured and energised brushwork.
Originally a freelance textile designer, she moved from London to St Ives in 1997 after falling in love with the place on a trip to Cornwall. “It was sort of a sensory thing” says Emma. “ I just loved it. I loved the incredible colours in the sea, and the broad beaches which are so gorgeously white, and of course the light - which everyone talks about I know, but it’s true, the light in St Ives is so unique.”
While still in London, Emma put together a collection of twelve paintings and offered them to St Ives’ New Craftsman Gallery. “Within two weeks they had sold all but one, which I took as a sort of sign I should come to St Ives. I felt a real affinity with the place, I had no ties in London, so I just thought I’d try moving here, and I upped and came!”
Since her first exhibition at the New Craftsman, Emma has gained a devoted following and it is not uncommon for her shows to sell out almost entirely on the opening night. Her style is distinct from other painters, combining as it does the historically important naive style associated with St Ives painting since Alfred Wallace, and the high set horizons and luminous colour of contemporary Cornish painting. Now living in Carbis Bay with her husband and two young sons, Emma spends her days “between school runs and my studio” and, either on foot or cycling the coast with her boisterous family of boys, immersing herself in the sights and sounds of West Cornwall.
“There is an infinite amount of visual stimulus in St Ives and around the bay - the abundance of flowers in spring, the fresh colours of early summer, patterns in the sand, the movement of the sea or the colours of the harbour in crisp autumn light” says Emma. “When I am working, I have to somehow tame all this richness in my own mind, and refine it into finished pieces. I make sketches, take photographs, and then work up paintings in my studio later on. What fascinates me, particularly with St. Ives having so many visual dimensions and variations, is not so much how it looks to us, but how we look at it. The more I study the sea, the beach the boats, the birds and the flowers, the more I want to delve beyond the obvious and look deeper into my own creativity, to simplify the things I perceive down to the bare bones: I try to achieve this by experimenting with mark making, abstracting the image, building textures and creating depth while still maintaining a pictorial feeling of place.”
Mercedes Smith - 2016