John Atherton

We came across John Atherton’s layered collage works during the Spring of 2022. His work was selected as part of our NAA x Summer Exhibition and we were instantly drawn to the folds, screen prints and collaged composition of his 3 dimensional works with paper.

Originally from Scotland John Atherton 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.

His current artistic practice is based on a chance discovery of a series of Swedish school yearbook and the portraits found in each.

‘It’s a seemingly arbitrary starting point for my work, a quite unpredictable and fortuitous beginning. The yearbook symbolises a rite of passage, a point of departure, it captures a moment of infinite possibility, the imminent journey to an unknown destination. My work is screen printed onto different papers and collaged together but I think of myself as a painter, the piles of paper, my 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.’

We are proud to represent John Atherton as a Guest Artist in the Nordics.

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Installation images from John Atherton’s recent solo exhibition Nostalgia of Distance

Nostalgia of Distance Box Set will be launched on July 22nd with four limited edition signed prints will be presented in a handmade box by John Atherton. The box set is an edition of 20 and has been created exclusively for the Nordic Art Agency. Please contact the gallery for more details.