Arctic Coasts: Janet Read

This body of work began with travels in the high arctic in 2018, returning in the fall of 2023. The Arctic region is losing permafrost, sea ice, and glaciers: an impact rapidly overtaking our ability to understand and remediate these changes. I visualize the processes of wind and water with improvisation and abstract mark making. These are internally mediated responses to the geography, not descriptive but experience based. A new direction in my work is the media of archival pigment prints created by drawing on an iPad. Small paintings in oil and acrylic further explore arctic seas, ice and oceans. Sustainable cultivation, sovereignty, and climate remediation issues prompt my ongoing desire to “keep faith” artistically with my haptic experience of the arctic. My works respond to Arctic fragility, beauty, and the urgent need for climate response; moving hearts and minds to action.

ABOUT THE ARTIST 

Janet Read is a painter, poet, and music educator with roots in the Ottawa Valley Irish; Belfast, and Wexford in Ireland: explaining a fondness for fiddle music, poetry, and the sea. Travels in the high Arctic sparked investigations of water with special reference to the North Atlantic and Arctic rim where climate change is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Notable exhibitions include the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Works collected by the Michael Garron Hospital; Royal Victoria Hospital; Ontario Archives; Markham Museum, Cornell Markham Library, Town of Markham, Whitby Station Gallery, Art Gallery of Northumberland: internationally in Australia, England and US.

www.janet-read.com

@janetreadvisualartist