Events

Work from high arctic travels in Canada and Greenland in 2018 and 2023. Oil on linen, acrylic on panel.

Tim Robinson, an Irish artist/mapmaker wrote a description of experiencing the land that resonates deeply 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. I wanted to short circuit the polarities of objectivity and subjectivity, and try 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.

An awareness of 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.

This group exhibition explores Nature in many artistic forms at the Women’s Art Association of Canada, 23 Prince Arthur, Toronto, ON.

I participated in five Ontario Society of Artists Exhibitions 2022, our 150th anniversary year. These public galleries hosted juried and members’ exhibitions: Temiskaming Art Gallery, Glenhyrst Art Gallery, Orillia Museum of Art and History, Art Gallery of Northumberland and the Lieutenant Governor’s Suites at Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario. It was a privilege to chair the Orillia exhibition at the Museum of Art and History, developing the curatorial focus of the exhibition.

Heritage Canada supported the publication of Breath. Heart. Spirit. The OSA 150 Years, available at the Art Gallery of Ontario bookshop and on the OSA website. I was the managing editor for the book, 204 pages, full colour illustration with essays by renowned curators and images from many of our artists. https://ontariosocietyofartists.org/osa-book-breath-heart-spirit-the-osa-150-years/

August 17, 2022

As Canada’s longest continuing art society since 1872, the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) is celebrating 150 years with a special members’ exhibition at the Orillia Museum of Art and History. On view now through September 2022, Conversations focuses on the theme and the anniversary yearbook title, Breath. Heart. Spirit.; it features newly created artworks by a group of OSA artists challenged to “interrogate, transform, reformulate, and relate to works by other historic OSA artists”. The group was invited to research, reflect and reimagine works of OSA members in relation to their own practice, each artist finding inspiration from the past as the basis for their new creation. 

“Conversations require breath, heart, and spirit. The heart listens, the spirit learns, and breath supports life. Ideas pass from artist to artist, permeating culture and vice versa. We share and learn,” says Janet Read, OSA Chair: Conversations. “Connections abound through time between our current artist members and the rich legacy of the past. Some members are second generation OSA, while others are students of past notable artists and teachers.”

Want to learn more about the OSA, artists and their legacy? Check out their anniversary publication, Breath. Heart. Spirit. The OSA 150 Years, on sale now at shopAGO. Interested in seeing more works from the 150th anniversary exhibition Conversations? Browse through the online catalog here.

Source

Paintings on linen, works on duralar, and panel Janet Read: High Arctic Light Toronto Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Ave., Toronto Opening reception : Saturday, May 7 from 1 to 4 pm open during Club events or by appt. in**@he************.org My work stems from a deep sense of place. Travels in the high Arctic of the Canadian North and Greenland prompted a series of works dealing with the horizon and light. See the beauty. Honour the land. The high Arctic ignites my imagination with austerity, light, space, fragility, and beauty. My response: abstract visual exploration of light, earth and sea. To view the exhibit by appointment contact in**@he************.org Or / view it virtually, at any time, on-line (under Art Exhibitions, High Arctic Light) at heliconianclub.org. (https://torontoheliconianclub.wildapricot.org/event-4766921) Image: Pale island, smoldering, 18 x 18, oil on birch panel (2022) THE HELICONIAN CLUB WOMEN LIVING IN THE ARTS

October 28 – November 15, 2020

Wednesday through Sunday 1:00 – 5:30 pm

Propeller Art Gallery

30 Abell Street, Toronto, ON

416-504-7142

www.propellerartgallery.ca

Due to the pandemic we will be holding a zoom opening on November 7^th at 2 – 3:30 pm rather than a physical onsite opening.

It would be lovely to see you online. Please register with Eventbrite through the gallery by November 6. www.propellerartgallery.ca

Artist Statement 

My current body of work presents “landscapes of consciousness” from a month’s immersion in high Arctic geography. I visited Pond Inlet, Grise Fjord and areas of Devon, Philpotts and Ellesmere Islands as well as coastal Greenland.

Paintings reference the artist’s “being” in the natural world and encounters with those for whom the high north is both wild and home. My paintings are reflective of my personal experience, always aware that indigenous voices must be heard to tell their own stories and history.

My work tells the story of a visitor, a sojourner to a remote and sublime region of Canada. My purpose is to highlight this region and the themes of “wilding and cultivation.” These themes invite the viewer to unpack moral,aesthetic and legal relationships to the land and the people for whom it is sustenance and spirit: landscape and home.

The wild is evident in the land and sea. Cultivation is the sea as resource and garden.

Wilding and cultivation go hand in hand in this delicately balanced environment. My work explores these dualities to raise awarenessof this fragile and beautiful part of our country through explorations of light, earth and sea.

Janet