Artist research

John Goto. Born 1949.


John Goto is most famous for producing photo-digital artworks, he has worked with historical, social and political subjects throughout his career. Goto studied Fine Art at St Martin's school of Art. European cinema and literature led him to do photography. In 1977 he made a group of culturally portraits of young people in London and called it 'Lovers Rock'.


In the 80's he combined drawing and painting in with his photographs which was John layering the groundwork until he started with computers. Goto produced work that told stories for example, 'Terezin' which told the story of a Bauhaus a trained Artist interned in the Nazi transit camp of Theresienstadt.

Another example of Goto's work is 'The Atomic Yard' which was exploring conflicted ideas of cultures in the 1950's Britain and was set in the highly aestheticised domestic surroundings of Kettle's Yard house in Cambridge. 

John Goto started using computers in the early 1990's with a series that was made in Russia named 'The Commissar in Space' 

His next collection was called 'The Framers Collection' which consisted of small stories which were attached to digitally manipulated snapshots, paintings and documentary photographs. This was his debt to Fernando Pessoa. 

Political and social satire came to the fore in Goto’s "Ukadia" series, which charts life and culture in Britain during the New Labour years when Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It comprises "Capital Arcade”, set in a fictional shopping centre; "High Summer”, which looks at our uncertain relationship with the countryside, and finally "Gilt City”, in which Goto explores the ever widening gap between rich and poor, a bit like Robin hood. 

The picture above is out of the 'Ukadia' series and is in the ' Capital Arcade' bit The picture below is also out of the 'Ukadia' series but is in the 'High summer' part instead. 

John Goto turned from different global worries from Iraq to climate changes making Art from their worries. John as he was a jazz child he made two pages to his exponents named 'West End Blues'.

John has different Exhibits around the country mainly in london and even here in Derby.