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Yorkminster Park Gallery

Janet Read

Oceans and Ice : Arctic Light

April 6 - May 30, 2024
Reception: Sunday, April 7, 2024, 12:30 - 2:00pm

artist statement 2024

This body of work began with travels in the high arctic in 2018, with a return in the fall of 2023, extending earlier themes in my work initiated by residencies in Newfoundland and western Ireland. The northern Atlantic rim fascinates me, an area under threat from extreme rapidity of climate change. The arctic reacts faster than other areas, losing permafrost, sea ice, and glaciers: an impact quickly overtaking our ability to understand and remediate these changes.

Works consist of large abstract paintings on linen, drawing/paintings on duralar, photographic closeups of tundra, and small book works. Small abstracts respond to photographic studies of the microflora of the tundra.

Light opens over water is a series of painted/drawn images on duralar with graphite and oil. The luminous translucent ground evokes the arctic's nebulous distances and its fragility.

Using improvisation and spontaneous mark making, I visualize the processes of wind and water as internally mediated personal experiences of the high arctic.

Tim Robinson, an Irish artist writes a description that resonates with my practice.

While walking the land, I am the pen on the paper; while drawing this map,
my pen is myself walking the land... [to try to] keep faith with reality.

Sustainable cultivation, sovereignty, and climate remediation issues prompt my ongoing desire to "keep faith" artistically in various media with my experience of the arctic.

Arctic fragility and beauty, and the urgent need for climate response compel my works: a mode of response to move the heart to knowledge and action.