Naomi Frears (b. 1963, Leicestershire) is a visual artist based in St Ives who works across painting, printmaking, film and video. She graduated from Sunderland College of Art in 1986 and was awarded the Printmaking Prize, leading printmaking courses at Falmouth Art Gallery (2007–17) and sessions at Tate St Ives (1993–2016). Her work has been exhibited and screened widely in the UK including at Newlyn Art Gallery; Tate St Ives; Bold Tendencies, London; Exeter Phoenix and Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. In 2020, she was awarded a painting commission by Hospital Rooms for the Bethlem Royal Hospital, London. In 2023 and 2026 she was nominated for the Film London Jarman Award for work with moving image.
Cars and Girls
Naomi FrearsCars and Girls
Single channel video
Cars: 04:08 minutes
Girls: 03:40 minutes
Cars captures a performance in which 40 cars arrived at a car park near Redruth, Cornwall in 2018. Participants tuned their radios to a unique temporary FM radio station (Radio Nowhere) to hear a track by Frears’ collaborator, Luke Vibert. The cars (each one like a tiny nightclub) followed directions to park in a simple choreographed sequence. The work has its origins in a 1999 performance, when a German collective invited artists to drive them on their favourite journey to a local beauty spot, with the soundtrack of their choice. Naomi, whose father had died six weeks before, asked to drive to the big car park in town. Her trip involved parking repeatedly for several minutes. Music played, and the car moved a lot without really going anywhere at all. In this frivolous movement, for the first time since her father’s passing, Frears felt elated; she realised she might feel alright again.
For Girls, we see four young women inside one of the cars in the performance. Frears says “I don’t think we are used to seeing how women behave in cars and I love how they interact with each other”. Filmed simultaneously with Cars, we see these women experiencing the unexpected glee of all parking together while listening to music in a confined space.
Cars is on loan from the UK Government Art Collection