John A. Blythe was born and raised in East London and Essex and became passionate about photography at an early age, experimenting widely and developing a research based abstract approach. In his childhood and early adulthood Blythe spent several extended periods in India and credits this experience as having a formative influence on his sense of light and colour. Having spent over 20 years working as a commercial photographer Blythe started teaching in 2010, graduated PGDip (ArtEd) in 2016, and went on to complete a Master of Fine Art in Fine Art from Oxford Brookes University in 2019. Blythe divides his time between teaching and his studio in East Oxford.
In 2017 Blythe was awarded an artist development grant by OVADA (Oxford Visual Arts Development Agency) for his ongoing project ‘A little light’, which led to his first joint show Accord at The Old Fire Station Gallery, Oxford. Blythe has since exhibited widely, including at the CICA Museum, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; the Bath Photography Festival; Siggrou 24 Project Space, Thessaloniki, Greece; gallery@oxo, Southbank, London; Zuleika Gallery, Woodstock, (awarded joint ‘best in show’); The Fabric of Photography at The Old Fire Station Gallery, Oxford, curated by Megan Ringrose; Out of the Box – BBK Art Space, Bonn, Germany and Der Greif 15th Anniversary Exhibition – “Contextualise”, Pinakothek Der Moderne, Munich, Germany. Blythe’s work has been published in Art Seen Magazine, LandEscape Magazine, The Flux Review, Humana Obscura, and in the book This Is (Still) Not A Solution and is held in private and institutional collections worldwide.
Blythe continues to develop his research practice. He studied the wet plate collodion process and salt printing with Michael Schaaf and has held several residencies including ‘Remove’ with London Alt Photography Collective/Guest Projects; ‘Test.Grow.Teach.Learn’ with LAPC, and ‘Sustainable Arts Lab’ with Fusion Arts and Artist in Residence at the University of Derby School of Art from 2019-2020 and 2021-2022. Most recently Blythe has been Artist in residence at Unit 1 Gallery Workshop, London.
Alongside his practice, Blythe taught photography at Queen Anne’s School, Caversham (2010-2013), worked as Module Leader of Foundation Photography at Bellerby’s College Oxford (2011 -2017), and currently teaches photography at d’Overbroeck’s College Oxford. Blythe lectures, mentors, and runs workshops specialising in sustainable and experimental approaches to photography. Recognised as an expert in his field, Blythe appeared in the BBC’s Celebrity Antiques Road Trip in 2021 to talk about Anna Atkins and the history of the Cyanotype photographic process.