Janne Rebecca Read

The photographer and artist Janne Rebecca Read was born in Norway, Arendal in 1972. She studied art, media and design in Norway, Denmark and has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Documentary Photography from the Magnum affiliated UWCN, at the University of Wales. At Romerike folkehøgskole she studied lighting design.

Her work has been exhibited in juried group exhibitions and one person exhibitions internationally.

Her work is represented both in private and public collections. She also works with commissions and Public Art Projects such as Foursights, supported by the Arts Council of England and she has been festival artist at the Hove Music Festival.

Welsh photographer and art lecturer Dr Pete Davis writes about Janne’s work, ‘A study of trees’, from the Coastal Light series:

“Forests can appear to be timeless and yet they are constantly evolving and changing. In some locations this is barely noticeable over many generations, even millennia, while human intervention and natural ecological factors can alter and devastate other wooded environments in the blink of an eye. Many forests owe their longevity to being a useful resource for the indigenous population, a situation that may have existed for some areas of woodland since the retreat of the glaciation that covered most of northern Europe until 10,000 years ago. This sense of history and continuity pervades many of these places and provides both spiritual renewal and creative inspiration for a sensitive creative photographer such as Janne Rebecca Read.

The myths and legends that are associated with forests are as diverse as their historical artistic representation and open to a wide range of creative interpretations according to the response of the individual artist. Janne’s work here draws on both her understanding of and sympathetic relationship with these places and her perceptive use of historical photographic references and techniques. She has managed to blend together the histories of this particular landscape environment and her chosen creative medium. This has resulted in a body of work that while contemporary and ‘of the moment’, is also a reflection of the timeless nature of such places passage of time and an expression of her own thoughts and feelings about a place that is clearly special to her”.