Fred Read Gallery 3
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Aldridge Art Gallery
161 Gerrard Street East, Toronto ON M5A 2E4
(across from Allan Gardens)
Wed - Fri Noon - 5 pm
Sat. 1 pm - 5 pm
Sun
Noon - 4 pm
and by appointment
Patricia Aldridge cell 647-226-8857
Fred Read's "Dreams"
Fred Read is an American original. A decoupage artist who captures the best and worst of the American experience with images of idyllic vistas alongside barrels of money and naked women. His work is informed by a love of sport fishing and an interest in military campaigns the world over. Read's canvas is a composite of pictures that have come to him from many different sources; culled from catalogs and magazines, saved away for years, or sought out from the artists he admires.
In Read's art one will find beauty and darkness, humor, and seriously thought provoking pictures. The nudity in Fred's art is as inyourface as it is in Jeff Koons' "Elvis," but with a subtlety that does not overpower. Sexuality here imparts a message about the human condition and the excesses our culture embraces. There is also an innocence that cannot be overlooked in Fred's work the simple act of taking your rod and reel into the woods and spending a day on the water. Fred appreciates the relationship between man and fish, woman and nature. The images he includes by Pleissner, Currier and Ives, and Rungius echo the scope of that appreciation.
Fred calls his works "Dreams" because as in a dream, iinages can flow, taking on mysterious significance as the boundaries between one vision and the next are fluid and seamless to the eye.
Fred Read has lived a varied and exciting, if unconventional, life. Born in 1938 in New York City, he had a privileged childhood, admitting with a smile that he was "thrown out of all the best schools." After active duty in the Marines, he worked his way up to a seat on the New York Stock Exchange back when the Dow saw a mere two to three million trades a day. MThen the company folded with the advent of computers, Read took his cue to go west. Once in California he grabbed life with both hands and did anything and everything to embrace a life of new experiences. Read has been a gas station attendant, house cleaner, dishwasher, chef, cab driver, construction worker, US postal worker, and ultimately, an artist. All those previous endeavors make his current role as artist rich indeed.