Inspired by Arctic travel and the threat to polar regions by climate change

Janet Read

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Janet Read is a painter, musician, poet, and music educator, whose childhood was spent near Lake Simcoe. The artist has sought the water’s edge ever since. Her 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 :on of water as metaphor for strength and fragility with special reference to the North Atlantic and Arctic rim where climate change is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Read studied graduate philosophy and educaton at U of Toronto. Art studies at York and OCADU inform her practce of largescale paintngs, book works, works on duralar and photo installation. Publishing credits include a poetry collecton and recent work as a managing editor for the Ontario Society of Ar:sts 150th anniversary book in 2022. Read’s MA thesis investigated the work of metaphor in visual art with reference to Paul Ricoeur and Merleau-Ponty. Exhibitons in commercial and public galleries, include the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, with a catalogue essay by David Aurandt, the Varley Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Peterborough, Art Gallery of Northumberland, and the Whitby Station Gallery. Hospital collectons include the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie and the Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto. Paintings can be found in public and private collections, including the Markham Museum, Cornell Markham Library, Town of Markham, and internationally in Australia, England and the US