Evan Read is a digital artist, painter and photographer. His work revolves around pattern and diagrammatic language. In the early 90s he began using the computer to do color studies for his hard-edged paintings. In 2005, seeking a faster process, and excited by the powerful tools for digitally manipulating form, he took a hiatus from painting and began working with a large format inkjet printer. The most recent prints are built around oval forms with airbrush-like shading, suggesting bodies, cells, clouds and other objects.

Recently, he added painting back into his practice, but with an eye to a different approach. The small, experimental canvases are process-oriented, utilize loose brush-work, and incorporate mistakes and chance. A repertoire of beautiful surfaces is a primary end. I love the contrast of different processes going on side by side — painting, digital, and graphite with colored pencil drawings.

Evan's perspective has been deeply informed by background in science and museum work. Out of college, he spent six years working in molecular genetics labs, including a couple of years doing microscope work on cell shape change. Later, while working on his MFA in Painting at Hunter College, he took a job doing diagrammatic scientific illustration. In 2013 he landed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he does a wide variety of imaging — from photo documentation of the restoration of paintings to research imaging using x-ray and infrared light.

Evan's studio is location a half hour north of New York City, in the Hudson River town of Dobbs Ferry.