The exhibit will be on display at the Agnes Jamieson Gallery from March 26 to May 23. The Official Opening with the Artist Talk is scheduled for April 11 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
This body of work began with Read’s 2018 sojourn to the high Arctic and extends themes first initiated during residencies in Newfoundland and western Ireland. The North Atlantic has long fascinated Read—an oceanic region now under acute threat from the accelerating pace of climate change. The Arctic, reacting faster than any other area on the planet, is rapidly losing permafrost, sea ice, and glaciers, changes unfolding at a speed that outstrips our ability to fully comprehend or remediate them.
Oceans and Light: Arctic Ice includes large abstract paintings on linen, drawing/paintings on Duralar, photographic close-ups of tundra, and small book works. The smaller abstract works respond directly to photographic studies of tundra microflora. Light Opens Over Water is a series of painted and drawn works on Duralar using graphite and oil. The luminous, translucent ground evokes the Arctic’s vast, nebulous distances. Through improvisation and spontaneous mark-making, Read visualizes the forces of wind and water as internally mediated, personal experiences of the high Arctic.
Artist Biography
Janet Read is a painter, musician, poet, and music educator, who grew up near Lake Simcoe. She has sought the water’s edge ever since. Read’s roots go back to the Ottawa Valley Irish, Belfast, and County Wexford in Ireland: explaining a fondness for fiddle music, poetry, and the sea. Residencies in Newfoundland and Ireland; and travels in the high Arctic, Norway, Iceland, and Scotland sparked a lifetime’s investigation of water as metaphor for strength and fragility, with special reference to the North Atlantic rim.
Read studied graduate Philosophy and Education at the University of Toronto. Art studies at York and OCADU inform her practice. Publishing credits include a poetry collection and recent work as a managing editor for the Ontario Society of Artists 150th Anniversary Book in 2022. Her work has been exhibited at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, the Varley Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Peterborough, Art Gallery of Northumberland, and the Whitby Station Gallery. Her artwork can be found in public and private collections across Canada, and internationally in Australia, England and the US.
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