April 12 - 26, 2014 Yanagisawa Gallery, Urawa, Japan - Metalogues
In April, John was kindly invited to show his relief works at the Yanagisawa Gallery (http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~gyanagis/) , Urawa, Japan by Toshiaki Yanagisawa. This was a highly successful exhibition and encouraged by the reception of his work in Japan, and what feels like their intuitive grasp of both aesthetics and ideas, John is seeking a suitable gallery either in Tokyo or Kyoto for 2015 exploring further his ‘cross-over’ sensibility and interests in skeuomorphic resonances from very distant times.
December 7th to 12th, 2013 The Edmund Gallery, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk - Inscapes
(Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1LS) The show was called ‘Inscapes’. After a hectic year and catching a horrible cold after returning from Japan, the show consisted of the works from the 78 Derngate show, but at least I was able to get the show on the road!
November 16 - 30, 2013 Yanagisawa Gallery, Urawa, Japan - Prism World Printmaking
In November, contemporary fine art print specialist Toshiaki Yanagisawa invited the Prism groups from the London show, seven British and seven Japanese artists, to hold a show at the long-established Yanagisawa Gallery, Urawa, Saitama - not far from central Tokyo - as a form of artistic and cultural exchange. John and his wife Kyoko, plus Trevor Banthorpe of Printworks, went to Japan to attend this event!
July 19 - 24, 2013 The Pond Gallery, Suffolk - Inscapes
John Read’s Annual One-Man Show at the Pond Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk – title also ‘Inscapes’. Private View 20th and 21st.
Some of the works from the Derngate show and a few new larger pieces plus the new series of mixed media prints, some of which will have been included in the PRISM show in June.
News & Links
John is co-curating with Nigel Oxley, and exhibiting prints, in this exciting show coming up in June. The Art Pavilion is a fantastic, large and bright gallery, ideally suited to showing off the intricate detail and surface textures of etchings, wood cuts, and other forms of fine art printmaking by the London group Printworks and artists from the Yanagisawa Gallery in Japan.
Some of the artists are at early stages in their careers while others are mid and late career, but all have demonstrated outstanding skills and vision in developing unique voices in this ancient, vigorous, flexible and still highly relevant medium. The show is diverse - intentionally - and mixes the differing sensibilities and approaches of individuals and their cultures.
PRISM intends to create a forum for the exposition of often under-represented artists and their cultures, allowing them equal exposure in the important international art centre that is London.
Artists from the Yanagisawa Gallery, Japan are:
Toshihiko Fudezuka http://tomokameyama.free.fr/index.php
Yoko Hara http://pinterest.com/search/?q=hara+yoko
Takahiko Hayashi http://pinterest.com/search/?q=hayashi+takahiko+
Tomohide Kameyama http://tomokameyama.free.fr/index.php
Keisuke Kinoshita http://www.yoseido.com/catalog/default.php?
Ritsuko Ozeki http://pinterest.com/search/?q=ozeki+ritsuko
Park Jae Young http://jaeyoung.jp/
Artists from London Group ‘Printworks’ are:
Susan Aldworth http://www.artandmind.org/pages/Biog/AldworthSusan.htm
Trevor Banthorpe http://www.trevorbanthorpe.com
Bunny De Sade www.doloresdesade.com
Toshihiko Ikeda http://shinobazu.com/artists/ikeda-toshihiko
Rebecca Jewell www.rebeccajewell.com
Nigel Oxley www,nigeloxley.com
John Read http://www.john-read.co.uk
June 11 - 23, 2013 Mile End Art Pavilion, London E3 4QY - Prism World Printmaking - One
(private View 6-9pm 11th June - all welcome!!)
Photos Yasu Sekimori
April 19 - June 30, 2013 The Gallery Upstairs, 78 Derngate, Northampton - Inscapes
John’s new show at ‘78’ - famous for being ‘the only house in England designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh’ - has just opened (19th April) and runs until the 30th June He’s been given the “Gallery Upstairs” and filled it to the brim - see the pano! The show is entitled Inscapes and features some railway model elements - more of which is explained here.
This is a wonderful opportunity for John’s work to reach a rather different audience to the usual art gallery going public as it is situated in the museum which draws those interested in C. R. Mackintosh’s design and those interested in the life and work of local achiever Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke; an engineer, a tireless pursuer of business opportunity which benefitted his local community, and a modernist and political radical which brought him the friendship of George Bernard Shaw.
October 2014 Spazio Ostrakon, Milan - Prism World Printmaking 3
Dorino Iemi, of the Spazio Ostrakon Gallery, Milan, has generously offered Prism a show, October 4 - 18, 2014. This will be Prism’s third international exhibition and will consist of many of the same artists from the Prism one and two shows, but with the addition of Japanese artists Jin Hirosawa (silkscreen), Tsutomu Morita (woodblock), Yuuichi Kashima (woodblock) and Hideki Kondo (lithograph), plus additions to the Printworks group Claudia De Grandi and Ian Brown. This promises to be a very exciting show of contrasts in idea and technique and we are looking forward to it very much (many thanks to Printworks artist - and Chair of the East London Printmakers - Bunny De Sade for making this connection for us). If you are in Milan at that time, or fancy a trip, please make time to come to see all this new work!
January 26 - 31, 2015 Goto Gallery, Ginza, Japan - Prism World Printmaking 4
I am delighted that Prism is able to announce that through the kind assistance of the great modern Japanese print artist Professor Tetsuya Noda we have been introduced to Mrs Mariko Goto who has generously offered us a show at the respected Goto Gallery in Ginza, Japan, for January 26 - 31, 2015! (NB. Prof. Noda currently has a fascinating and comprehensive show of his ‘Diary’ series works at the British Museum, London, 5 April - 5 October). We are truly honoured by their kindness and are looking forward hugely to this show. John is curating this show with Toshihiko Ikeda who is a member of the London Printworks group now returned to Japan. This show will include new Japanese contributors to Prism, Tsutomu Morita, Jin Hirosawa, Yuuichi Kashima, Masahiro Kawahara, Hideki Kondo, Ryoko Tanaka, and Shizuko Kiyohara, (as well as John’s new prints), and many of the artists from previous Prism shows - see the Prism site. (We are currently exploring possibilities for the next Prism London exchange show having unfortunately lost the magnificent Art Pavilion, Tower Hamlets, as a venue for 2014).
July 17 - 23, 2014 Pond Gallery, Suffolk - Metalogues
John will be holding his annual solo show at the Pond Gallery, Snape Maltings. It is entitled “Metalogues’ and will consist of some of the works recently shown in Japan as well as large new pieces and some photographic syntheses. All the new works in this series incorporate cross-overs between ‘disparate’ techniques and methodologies. The ideas behind this approach and series of works are discussed here.
Toshiaki-san, centre, at the opening.
© John Read 2012
All rights reserved
August 28 - September 3, 2014 Peter Pears Gallery, Aldeburgh, Suffolk - Joint exhibition with Patricia Colyer
John will be sharing with talented Suffolk artist Tricia Colyer, showing a variety of exciting work in the heart of Aldebugh Music Festival Country! Tricia’s work can be seen at www.patriciacolyer.co.uk. The Private view days are Sat.30 and Sun. 31, 12 - 4pm, but all other days open 10 - 5pm.
October 6 - 18, 2015 The Embassy Tea Gallery, Bankside, London - Prism Distinct Impressions: Prism 5 London - Identity and the International Print Artist
After months of planning Prism could hold its long-awaited return exhibition for our friends in Japan - 14 of them - but we could also add some eminent Continental artists to the mix - three Italians, three Poles and one Dutch artist - along with a new Chinese friend. It was a large exhibition of 32 artists from six countries with around 140 prints of serious quality, and fortunately the Embassy Tea Gallery was big enough to hold it all. Kindly supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Japan Society and Japan Centre London, along with Caligo Safewash Inks, we could also manage to bring two fine Japanese artists to London to give talks and demonstrations. It was a very fine exhibition well supported by visitors who were fulsome with their praise, as the Visitor’s Book testifies. Although I am co-founder and curator for these exhibitions, it is for me a great honour to be included as a print artist with so many really committed print artists. www.prismprintinternational.com
July, 2015 Recent Work - John Read at the Pond Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk
A show featuring large scale works in a variety of mediums, and including photographs and prints with the mixed media reliefs. The large works had the collective title ‘The Surface of the World’, which draws on the source ideas, of course - the road series, the archaeological approach to both the ground as historically inscribed surface and the fact that the works are layered and usually scraped down to reveal events underneath - but also on the title a book about the Italian film director Antonioni which dealt with the observational and distanced approach of his method. I do observe the surface of things. I am curious about it, rather as a ‘native tracker’ might become habituated to the study of the ground as a deep ‘story’ to be read. One does it visually in the same way as a dog does it through being extremely sensitive to smell. As an artist and a trained observer it is natural to become enthralled by the subtle evidence and the means of decoding it.
October 2015, Impact 9 Conference Exhibition - China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China. Part of Prism nine artist box set submission to the exhibition
March 2016, Prism 6 at Clifford Chance Gallery, Docklands, London. Part of the Prism exhibition at this important print specialist gallery, and curator for the exhibition
May 2016, Accepted in the Small Print International competition touring exhibition organised by Leicester Print Workshop. Touring 6 UK cities : Leicester Attenborough Arts; The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne; Gallery Top, Rowsley, Derbyshire; West Yorkshire Print Workshop; London Print Studio; Alfred East Gallery, Kettering. www.leicesterprintworkshop.com
June 2016, Prism 7 at the Spodki Gallery, Bialystok, Poland Part of the Prism exhibition at this large civic gallery, and curator for the exhibition. A delightful experience to visit beautiful eastern Poland in the Podlaski region and meet some wonderful people. Thanks to Tomasz Kukawski for his unstinting efforts to care for us all!
July 2016, John Read - Groundworks, The Pond Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk. My seventh annual solo exhibition in this large Suffolk gallery.
July 2016, 1st T-K-O International Miniprint Exhibition, B-Gallery, Nishi-IKebukuro, Tokyo; Art Zone Kaguraoka, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto; Gallery Irohani, Sakai-City, Osaka.
Accepted in competition for this new travelling exhibition within Japan. http://pubhtml5.com/bppz/focy
(Update: We met Haruko Chö at the B-Gallery and found her to be an enthusiastic and very active promoter, of print art especially. Her own work is highly original and well done and so I invited her to show with the Prism organisation, of which I am chair and co-founder, outside Japan. I hope to show at B-Gallery in the future)
April 2017, John Read - Eclogues, The Yanagisawa Gallery, Urawa, Tokyo
I am thrilled to have my second solo exhibition at this important Tokyo region gallery. A great chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones, and hoping to discover more about how my work interacts with the Japanese psychology and taste. www.yanagisawagallery.com
(Update - it was great fun. We sold well and made even more new friends. Thanks to Toshiaki-san for his great kindness and faith in my new work! It was great to see everyone)
I also made the acquaintance of the dynamic Haruko Cho of the B-Gallery inTokyo and was invited to show there in April 2019. We were delighted to be able to invite her to join PRISM and there will now be a selected exhibition of PRISM artists at the B-Gallery in May 2019!
May 2017, John Read - Solo at Gallery Goho, Suginami-ku, Tokyo http://gallerygoho.blog.fc2.com/
My first exhibition in this smart central Tokyo gallery. Looking forward to this new experience very much. Thanks to Omura-san, the gallerist, Itabashi-san from the Donichi Garoh saw my work and invited me to show in 2018!
September 24 - October 29, 2017, Prism 8 - ‘Connections’ as part of the IXth International Engraving Exhibition, Cremona, Italy. At the Cultural Centre Santa Maria Della Pieta. www.artetorchio.it
This was truly a wonderful exhibition. Being shown alongside so many really great artists - including Picasso, Chagall, Miró, Tàpies - was a huge honour for me. Vladimiro Elvieri and Maria Chiara Toni, the organisers and curators, worked so hard to make a world class exhibition. I met so many interesting people there too, interesting artists - like Zhang Minjie from China, Jim Monson from France, Egide from Switzerland - and gallerists Michelle Champetier and Patrick Bertrand - Michelle Champetier Gallery (www.mcchampetier.com) NB I am now represented by their gallery online from Cannes!!!. (Thank you Michelle and Patrick!) I also made the acquaintance of Mme Denise Frélaut, whose husband was a partner in the legendary Lacouriere et Frélaut studio near the Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre, Paris (studio now closed, sadly). What an experience the whole visit to Cremona was for me! Thanks, dear friends, Vladimiro and Chiara!
October 19 -21 2018 All at once many exhibition opportunities arrived! One of my gallerists in Tokyo, and a great print artist and member of Prism, Haruko Chō, came to London to take part in the Parallax Art Fair in London’s Chelsea Town Hall - a mad overactive event! She kindly asked me to join in her space with some of her other gallery members. She runs the B-gallery in Tokyo.
In Cremona! Vladimiro and Chiara second and third from right. Ian Nigel and I, centre left. Our partners Sybil, Kyoko and Wendy L to R. Photo by Eric.
Chiara, Vladimiro, with Nigel Oxley, Eric just behind them, in their studio.
April 12 - 29, 2018. John Read solo exhibition at the Donichi Garoh, Tokyo, Japan.
〒164-0002 東京都中野区上高田3-15-2 電話／FAX 03-5343-1842 www.donichigaroh.com
I am really delighted to be invited to have this exhibition in Tokyo, my ‘home from home’! Thank you very much to the generous proprietor Itabashi-san! A real art connoisseur, so I am doubly honoured.
It fascinates me how so many Japanese who visit my exhibitions seem immediately to grasp the essential matter of my explorations, and we can discourse along the same lines. There is none of the usual difficulty about confronting work which is more or less non-figurative as there often seems to be for Western people, whether older or younger visitors. The ‘thingness’ of the work is its intrinsic starting point and mode of research into expression. The concerns for “Earth’, ‘spirit’, deep history, deep attachment to place and to culture, are givens in Japanese society and culture, I feel, so that is also a non-question. Thank you, dear Itabashi-san!
Dear friends David and Mitsue Ambrose standing either side of the charming Omura-san, Gallery Goho owner (photo Mayumi Tsuneoka)
Goho Gallery views (All photos by Tsuneoka-san)
Upstairs gallery at Yanagisawa Gallery
From left: Ian Brown, Tomasz Kukawski, Sybil Brown, J. Read, Wendy Shirvani, Nigel Oxley, Yolanda Eveleens and Ruud Streefkerk. Tomasz generously arranged this huge exhibition for Prism and made sure we were all throughly impressed with the beauty of Poland, i.e. lovely Suprasl, bottom left!
Photos by Wendy Shirvani, Bernadette - and J. Read
Gallerist Itabashi-san checking all is okay!
April 2018. I was extremely fortunate to be able to make two editions of prints, an etching and a lithograph, at the marvelous Kawalabo! print studio, run by my friends Masahiro Kawara and Sachie Hirakawa, while I was in Tokyo. It was great fun and a real education to see them at work. They managed to complete the editioning after I got back to the UK and I am really pleased and grateful for their expertise and encouragement. Great people!
April 2018 Right after Kyoko and I got back from Japan I went down to see my friend Nigel Oxley, at the Nigel Oxley Studio in Bexhill-On-Sea, East Sussex. With Nigel’s encouragement, I explored ways of making an intaglio plate without actually getting into either metal or acid! Using thin board and hard paste filler I could create a richly detailed surface hard enough to resist inking and the weight of the etching press roller. The resulting plates were proofed, and then editioned by Nigel. This is closer both to drawing and to the kind of making I do with my relief sculptures so I was very pleased to evolve this method. Nigel was just fresh from completing a critical series of etching editions for artists Susan Aldworth derived from her passion for the work of Victor Pasmore, and also from nearly completing his own magnum opus - a long series of prints using innovative techniques which stem from discovering his father’s wartime cache of memorabilia and his time in prisoner of war camps in eastern Germany. These have just been shown in Ireland at the Cotton Court Gallery, Belfast, in association with the Belfast Print Workshop!
My larger plate inked up and... Nigel Oxley, master etcher, editioning!
August 16 - 29, 2018 In the Summer I was able to make time to exhibit with my good friend the brilliant potter Chris Soule in his regular slot at the Quay Gallery, Snape Maltings, Suffolk. Our two kinds of work worked in a good complimentary fashion and I was pleased to be able to get an enthusiastic response from the public to my recent ‘Masque’ series prints, selling lots! Thanks Chris for asking me!
Masahiro Kawara and Sachie Hirakawa at the Kawalabo! Workshop, Machida City, Japan
After
October 19 - November 2, 2018 The Parallax Fair overlapped with the opening of our second Prism exhibition at Clifford Chance, a real honour for Prism and all the 25 members shown. I showed my latest pieces created in Nigel Oxley’s studio alongside twenty four brilliant print artists from across the world. The Clifford Chance Art Club and Nigel Frank and Jane Hindley of Frank Hindley Art Consultants, could not have been more generous and accommodating. It was a great looking exhibition and the fine catalogue distills the variety of approach and invention. It was a delight for me, as Prism Curator, to curate this lovely show of work.
One of Haruko Chō’s prize-winning prints:
B-Cushion Grade #16-2014 Piezograph on Lokta paper 68 x 100cm
Foreground Ian Brown, Susan Aldworth centre, then Paul Coldwell
Prints L to R: Silvana Martignoni, Susan Aldworth, John Read. Photos J. Read left and Nigel Frank right
November 6, 2018 - January 2, 2019 Thanks to the enthusiasm of Linda McBurney and Jim Allen of the Belfast Print Workshop, and then to the other directors, Karen Daye-Hutchinson, and Meadhbh McIlgorm the workshop manager, we all managed to put together a really beautiful exhibition consisting of 24 works from BPW selected by Prism and 25 works from Prism. This is currently (December) at the Oriel Gallery associated with Clotworthy House, Antrim Castle and Gardens. I was so impressed by the Belfast Print Workshop - great facilities, great members, and a history of great work. It was an honour for me to be included in this wide-ranging exhibition!
The Oriel Gallery ‘Graphic Editions’ exhibition with BPW members and Prism artists.
Photos: John Read and Wendy Shirvani
September 2019 I am immensely honoured and pleased to be invited to be among “twenty-two contemporary printmakers noted for quality and originality in graphic art” included in the huge -
10th International Printmaking Exhibition - Cremona 2019, Cremona, Italy.
22nd September to 27th October 2019!
Held at the Cultural Centre Santa Maria Della Pietà, Piazza Giovanni XXIII, it will feature several sections: “Bon à Tirer” (Masters of ‘900), “Italian Printmaking Under 35”, and “Ex Libris to ‘500 Leonardo da Vinci, and “Nuovi Approdi/New Landings” (in which my works will appear - I hope!). A fantastic survey of current print art in compared with works by some very famous masters from the 1900s, and the tantalisingly detailed beauty of the tiny ex libris works in addition!
info@elvieri-toni.com, www.incisionesenzaconfini.it, facebook / incisione senza confini
Photo courtesy of Associazione Incisione Senza Confini
October 15 - 27, 2019 I am very happy to say that I have been generously offered a solo exhibition at the Tokyo B-Gallery run by my friend and fellow Prism artist Haruko Chō. I will show a mixture of new works including prints and relief sculptures. This exhibition will coincide with my friend Nigel Oxley’s solo exhibition at the Print Gallery, Sendagaya, Tokyo.
B-Gallery, 2-31-6 Nishi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0021, Japan. www.Bgallery.info, email: email@Bgallery.info
PRISM 11 TOKYO - October 15-30, 2019 Prism is mounting a really large exhibition at the Ginza INOAC Namikidori Gallery, which I am part-curating with our Japanese Prism members Toshihiko Ikeda, Sachie Hirakawa and Masahiro Kawara.
We are delighted to announce that the group of three exhibitions (Prism at INOAC, John Read at the B-Gallery and Nigel Oxley at the Print Gallery Tokyo), has the support of CLIFFORD CHANCE Tokyo office and is now an affiliate event of the British Council UK in Japan 2019-20 Season of Events!! Great support! Sincere thanks to both organisations.
There will be 43 Prism artists exhibited, in the INOAC gallery and elsewhere, from 16 countries. It will be Prism’s biggest and most culturally significant exhibition to date!
9F, 2-4-14 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan. http://namikidori-gallery.com/
2nd TKO International Miniprint (Tokyo - Kyoto - Osaka) December 2019 - January 2020. Delighted to once again be accepted in the exhibitions travelling to three locations in Japan. Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Tokyo, Art Zone Kaguraoka, Kyoto and Gallery Irohani, Osaka, were the three venues for this important venture created by artist and gallery director Haruko Cho.
PRISM 12 – STOCKHOLM 2020. PRISM PRINT INTERNATIONAL was invited to exhibit in Stockholm at the Nordens Ljus Gallery (a fantastic converted barge in the centre of Stockholm), and at the Moriska Rummet gallery of the Swedish Printmakers’ Association in March and April 2020. I’m very pleased to say I was included in the Nordens Ljus exhibition part. Unfortunately, as this was the beginning of the Covid pandemic I was unable to attend. Very disappointed!
PRISM KRÁKOW – CONSPECTUS – held at the CENTRUM GALLERY, International Centre for Graphic Arts, of the Krákow International Print Triennial organisation, during the 2021 TRIENNIAL. In August 2021, despite all the hassles presented by Covid restrictions and the added ‘fun’ of difficult customs departments, we could finally get the exhibition up, through the kindness of the Triennial staff. I produced the catalogue for the exhibition here. I was honoured to be included in this important benchmark exhibition for PRISM after 9 years.
March 1-13, 2022, at the B-Gallery, Nishi-Ikebukuro, Tokyo, I am ‘representing England’ in an exhibition of small prints by 48 artists from around the world! Thanks to energetic Cho-san for continuing to hold exhibitions despite the Covid dangers and difficulties in Japan. Having once caught the virus and, being double vaccinated suffering very little effect from it, I am even so still wary of new variants. So I have much admiration and respect for Cho-San’s determination. I wish the show success! (Photo by Haruko Cho).
