John Atherton b. 1977

John Atherton (b.1977) is originally from Scotland where he studied Graphic Design at The Glasgow School of Art. He lived and worked in London as a screen printer, designer, curator and assistant to international artists before attending The Royal College of Art from 2017 till 2019. After graduating he was selected for both the Clifford Chance Purchase Prize, and Travers Smith, CSR Art Programme. He now lives and works in Sweden.

John Atherton’s formal abstract works are unequivocally in the tradition of modern abstract art. At first sight, they are to be appreciated entirely in the realm of pure visual abstraction and the pleasures of viewing carefully composed colour and form. However, counter-intuitively to this tradition, Atherton’s work emerges not from the lineage of abstract art but from that of portraiture through the commemorative representations found in an anonymous school yearbook from the 1980s. 

The yearbook is a seemingly arbitrary starting point but is infact a quite unpredictable and fortuitous beginning. It is an object of commemoration and, for many people, an object of nostalgia, distance, and lost time, it symbolises a rite of passage, a point of departure, it captures a moment of infinite possibility, the imminent journey to an unknown destination. 

Atherton’s work is screen printed onto different papers and collaged together but Atherton thinks of himself as a painter, the piles of paper, his colour palette. These layers of materials and imagery embody a vast hinterland of narratives and creative ideas that echo back to the yearbook. The creative journey and the personal narratives are encoded in the stratification of materials with only the most recent layer fully visible.

Historically a distant landscape depicted in a portrait painting informs the viewer of a sense of nostalgic contemplation in the sitter. It is with this in mind that Atherton suggests a perceptual shift, that his abstract works could be interpreted by the viewer as a scene through a picture frame window. The nostalgic contemplations of the the sitter (an absent presence) are inventions conceived by the viewer, as they unravel the abstract ambiguity of the work.

THIS LANDSCAPE HAS CHANGED

I know there are no demons in the undergrowth

At least I think so

Forming faces in clouds and all manner of things

Unlimited

I see the angry face of a malevolent spirit

a flaming giraffe

a tea clipper in full sail

I transform my perception

I decide to build castles in the air

Invent my own faces in the sky

Literal recognisable objects incongruously appear

This landscape has changed

EDUCATION

(2017-2019) Royal College of Art, MA, Fine Art, Print

(1995-1999) Glasgow School of Art, BA, Visual Communications

(1994) Leith School of Art, Foundation level

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2023

Nostalgia of Distance Box Set Launch

Nordic Art Agency, Malmō

Nostalgia of Distance,

Nordic Art Agency, Malmō (Solo)

2022

Summer Exhibition, Nordic Art Agency, Malmō

Stripped, Galleria Azur, Madrid

Seeing Abstraction, Galleria Azur, Madrid

2021

Summer Exhibition, Jealous Gallery, London

Homecoming, Galleri Revolt, Boras (Solo)

Hot Sheet Expo, the Department Store, London

2020

An Absent Presence, Galleri SM, Ulricehamn (Solo)

Lures, Tension Fine Art,  London

2019

Clifford Chance Purchase Prize, London

Travers Smith, CSR Art Programme, London

Quivering Horizons, Berwick Upon Tweed

What A Relief, CGP Gallery, London

Images Can Be, The Crypt Gallery, London

PUBLICATIONS

2023

Nostalgia of Distance Box Set, Nordic Art Agency

2020,

Exhibition article, Boras Tidning

Hot Sheet Expo, Exhibition Publication

Exhibition article, Ulricehamns Tidning

Spring, bluebee Magazine

2019

Clifford Chance Purchase Prize, Exhibition Publication

Travers Smith, CSR Art Programme,  Exhibition Publication

TALKS

Nordic Art Agency Podcast: Nostalgia Of Distance

Artist Talk, Nordic Art Agency, Malmö

Nordic Art Agency Podcast: Summer Exhibition

Artist Talk, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham

Artist Talk, University of Gloucestershire

Building An Artist Residency, Royal College of Art, London

WRITING

Demons in the Undergrowth: Ambiguity and Preconceived Ideas