Emma Jeffryes has always painted, and could have followed the Fine Art route at university. “But I was aware of wanting an actual ‘career’,” she says. “I was studying textile design at the Royal College of Art when I first came to St Ives for a holiday in 1997, and the impact of arriving here has never left me.

“I loved the feel of it - the beaches, the people, and especially the sea. That first week, I just went out and responded to the thrill of the place by painting. I was literally taping down paper on the end of West Pier - you could do that back then, there weren’t so many people around - and I did 10 or 11 paintings that way, getting my folder out and just painting what I saw.”

Before returning to London, she tentatively offered the paintings to art dealer Mary ‘Boots’ Redgrave of St Ives’ New Craftsman Gallery, expecting nothing more than a polite refusal. “But she loved them,” says Emma, “and the next minute she was whizzing me over to Penzance in her car to get them framed! It wasn’t at all what I expected, but that’s how it happened.” Proof, if it were needed, that Mary knew her stuff - Emma’s paintings sold out in a fortnight, and her artistic career began. “That was the moment I thought ‘I love painting, and I love it here!’” says Emma. “It all made sense.”

She moved to St Ives that winter. “I was completely alone in my little van. It was November and it was hideous weather, but I thought it was beautiful. I rented a flat on Barnoon Terrace, with an amazing view - that first couple of years I literally just sat and stared out of the window,” she laughs.

The life Emma has built since that time is no longer so solitary. Married to Ben whom she met in St Ives, and now living in Carbis Bay, she has two growing sons, and over the last 20 years has forged a career as one of Cornwall’s best-loved painters. That first acceptance from New Craftsman Gallery has become a well-established partnership, and Emma opens their exhibition season every April with an annual show of new work.

Her style - a contemporary take on the St Ives tradition of naive painting - is admired by serious collectors, and those with a passion for the town of St Ives. “ I don’t think of myself as a naive artist,” she says, when I put this interpretation to her, “but I do look at things in a simple way. I certainly love the work of Alfred Wallace - it was one of those ‘wow’ factors for me when I first came to St Ives.”

“I don’t compare myself to anyone - I just paint in the way I want- but I do look at other artists. I’ve been looking at the work of David Pearce recently, at his take on simplicity, on the elements he puts in his work. He gets it exactly right. I’ve also been looking at Emma McClure, at the softness in her work and those few, strong lines. It’s simple but it’s very clever.”

Her constant inspiration, St Ives, has been the focus of nearly all of her painting, but in recent years she has been “exploring outwards from St Ives”, most notably with a show in 2015 inspired by the Tall Ships Regatta in Falmouth, and a show inspired by the coast path around Penwith this coming April.

 “I never get bored of the compositions you can find in St Ives,” she says. “There is so much diversity in this one small town. But I’ve been getting out on the coast path, and that’s fascinating me at the moment. The walk from Penzance to Newlyn, from Newlyn to Mousehole and on to Lamorna is absolutely beautiful, especially in the spring. The landscape can be so wild and natural, and then suddenly there are all these iconic visual things - the Jubilee Pool, Penzance promenade and the harbour at Mousehole.

“When I’m out, I make very simple sketches, then sort of mix it all up in my head, so my paintings are not a direct portrayal of what I see, but a coming together of things I’ve seen or drawn. Back in my studio, I make tiny pencil drawings of various compositions, to make sense of all my ideas,”

The new show has several themes running through it.

“There’s the coast path, of course, and St Ives: the sea, the flowers, the trawlers and the fishing boats. I’ll almost sketch up the whole show first, then pick out the best ideas.”

These days, she’s becoming more of a perfectionist. “That’s different from the way I used to work. I’m layering a lot more paint on my work than I used to, but I think that’s just part of progressing as an artist. I use a brush, a roller, a rag or a palette knife, even sandpaper to bring out colours. It takes a lot now for me to feel  a painting is finished. I have about 20 works in progress, in the studio at the moment, but for me that really works, because I view them as a collection.”

Why, I ask her, have collectors admired her work so devotedly, and for so long? “ I think they respond to it as art of place’,” says Emma, “St Ives changed my life, and I think it’s an equally poignant place for many others. It’s a beautiful place to be, and I think people want to celebrate it.”

Mercedes Smith - 2019