Jo Ganter RSA
Biography
1963
Born in Yorkshire, England
1983
Moves to Edinburgh in Scotland to study History of Art at Edinburgh University and Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 1988.
1988
Receives a John Kinross Scholarship to work independently in Tuscany for three months.
1989
Is awarded a Rome Scholarship in Printmaking and lives and works at the British School at Rome for nine months.
1992
Moves to Glasgow. Becomes artist-in-residence in the printmaking department of the Art School and begins teaching there. Becomes a member of Glasgow Print Studio.
1994
Lives and works in America for six months with the assistance of a Boise Scholarship, first in New York at Robert Blackburn’s Print workshop, and then at the KALA Art Institute in Berkeley, California where she was given a Fellowship.
1995
Begins teaching at Edinburgh College of Art.
1997
Artist-in-residence at the Frans Masereel Centre in Belgium for a short period and begins the series of small etchings, Meeting Places.
1998
First solo exhibition at Glasgow Print Studio Gallery, Meeting Places.
2000
Solo exhibition at the A.I.R. Gallery in New York. Learns how to make paper at Dieu Donne Papermill in Manhattan, funded by the Scottish Arts Council.
First solo exhibition in London at the Hart Gallery.
2001
Returns to New York to make a suite of paper pieces. They are made from over-beaten linen pulp that is translucent and can be illuminated. Witnesses the events of September 11th in lower Manhattan.
2003
Solo exhibition at the Talbot Rice Art Gallery in Edinburgh, Cardinal Glimpses.
2004
Elected to the Royal Scottish Academy and to be Vice President of the Society of Scottish Artists. Exhibits the paper pieces at Glasgow Print Studio.
2005
Receives the Sir William Gillies Trust Fund Award from the RSA to buy a digital SLR camera.
Attends the Impact International Printmaking Conference in Berlin and gives a paper: Craft versus Concept, which is then published in Grapheion Yearbook.
2010
Solo exhibition, Forms of Being at Glasgow Print Studio.
Invited to America to make work at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia and University of Massachusetts at Amherst
2011
Teaches for a semester at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Attends the Impact Printmaking Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Invited to take part in the “Millenial Mind”, an exhibition in Busan, Korea. Exhibits at Copernicus’ Residence, Olsztyn, Poland with Adrian Wiszniewski and June Carey. Solo exhibition at the Vilnius Academy of Art in Lithuania.
2012
Wins the Canson Polska Award at the Cracow Print Triennial for the digital photograph, Walking Through.
2014
Begins working with Raymond MacDonald to create graphic scores and makes her first animations which are shown at GIO Fest at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow.
2015
Running Under Bridges, an exhibition and performances of the graphic scores at the Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, in May.
Attends the Impact International Printmaking Conference in Hangzhou, China: presents the graphic scores made with Raymond MacDonald and Raymond performs them with three Chinese musicians, at the conference, and at Lineout Stage and Bar
2016
Travels to Woodstock NY to work with the American jazz pianist and composer Marilyn Crispell, to create a new suite of graphic scores for Marilyn to play called Gradations of Light. Marilyn invites David Rothenberg to perform duets of the scores with her when they are recorded at Nevessa Recording Studio.
The animation of the graphic score, Town & City Halls is shown at the Melbourne International Animation Festival in June.
2017
Drawing Sound an exhibition at the Kleinert James Center for the Arts in Woodstock, NY, features the graphic scores made in collaboration with Marilyn Crispell and Raymond MacDonald. Over 250 people crowd into the gallery for the musical performance at the opening.
2018
Walking Through, an exhibition at Linlithgow Burgh Hall in July features the figurative photographic works Ganter made in Amherst in 2011 and previously only shown in Korea.
2019
Silent Music, Seeing Sound, an exhibition with Raymond MacDonald, at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh features a new suite of graphic scores that introduce laser-cut relief printing for the first time.
Begins work on a new stop motion film with music commissioned from David Rothenberg under the working title Moving Stills. Travels to Cold Spring NY to do a final edit with David in November. The finished film is called Urgent Nature.
2020
Silent Music, Seeing Sound travels to Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music, 30 September - 15 October
2021
Drink in the Beauty, an exhibition at GoMA, Glasgow, features Urgent Nature. The exhibition, titled after a quote from environmental writer Rachel Louise Carson's book Spring Time features women artists' responses to the natural environment.
2022
IN REAL SPACE + TIME, a residency at the Jane Street Art Center in Saugerties, NY with musicians George Burt, Marilyn Crispell and Raymond MacDonald, and painter, Melinda Stickney-Gibson. This collaborative period of working allowed the artists to expand their relationship with music and art to large paintings and freer musical interpretations of the very gestural imagery.
2023
Ganter is elected Treasurer of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture.
Doodling with Intent, an exhibition at the Upright Gallery in Edinburgh. This small, informal setting provided the perfect setting for the small doodled watercolours that Ganter created through lockdown and a place to test her improvised relief prints: works influenced by her work with musicians but freed from the constraints of collaboration and the form of a graphic score. The show will be expanded and travel to further venues in 2024.
Collections that have acquired Ganter's work:
British Museum, Department of Prints & Drawings.
Contemporary Art Society, London.
Edinburgh City Arts Centre, (Jean F Watson Bequest Fund).
Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee, Belgium.
Hunterian Art Gallery & Museum,
Glasgow University.
Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, New York.
Katherine Caraccio Print Archive, New York.
Lillie Art Gallery, Milngavie
(East Dumbartonshire Council).
Library of Congress, New York,
(Robert Blackburn).
Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
New York Public Library.
Art Museum Portland, Oregon.
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.
The Ashmolean, Oxford
Womens’ Art Collection, New Hall,
Cambridge University.
Bibliography
2009
Printmaking, Bill Fick and Beth Grabowski, Laurence King.
ISBN-10 1856696006
ISBN-13 978-1856696005
2008
The Printmaking Bible, Ann d’Arcy Hughes and Hebe Vernon-Morris, Chronicles of San
Francisco. ASIN: B001XP4CBY
2006
Allgemeines Kunstlerlexikon K.G. Saur, Munich & New York.
2003
Printmaking Quarterly Catalogue & Book Reviews, Vol.XX, No.4
2002
Graphica Creativa, Jyvaskyla Art Museum, Finland, text by Matti Velhonoja.
ISBN 952-5332-43-8
2001
Mutating Image, Tallina XII graafikatriennaal,
ISBN 9985-78-236-4
1997
Evolving Forms/Emerging Faces, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University Press.
1997
The Best of Printmaking, an international collection, Lynne Allen & Phyllis McGibbon.
ISBN 1-56496-371-3
