Touching Sight: Conor Clarke, Emma Fitts, Oliver Perkins

Conor Clarke Huka Falls (Described by Steve Delaney) 2020. C-type print, braille (PVC, UV ink). Courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms, Auckland.

Conor Clarke installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Two Rooms Gallery. Photo: John Collie

Emma Fitts installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Melanie Roger Gallery. Photo: John Collie

Emma Fitts installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Melanie Roger Gallery. Photo: John Collie

Oliver Perkins installation view. Courtesy of the artist, Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Photo: John Collie.

Oliver Perkins installation view. Courtesy of the artist, Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Photo: John Collie

This exhibition is now closed

New photography, textiles and painting from three Ōtautahi artists.

Working in photography, textiles and painting, Conor Clarke (Ngāi Tahu), Emma Fitts and Oliver Perkins explore ideas of perception, both how we gain awareness through our senses, and the way in which something is interpreted or understood. For this exhibition Clarke has collaborated with members of the blind and low vision community, inviting participants to share a description of a landscape as they remember it and then making touchable photographs in response to these. Fitts is interested in the histories of textiles and women artists, translating the form, composition and colour of twentieth-century paintings into bold sculptural textiles. And Perkins is constantly thinking through the structure, surface and support of his paintings, the result of restless experimentation in the studio. Brought together, this exhibition celebrates different processes of making and ways of seeing. It also includes audio descriptions and materials to touch.

Date:
31 October 2020 – 21 February 2021
Curator:
Melanie Oliver
Exhibition number:
1107

Collection works in this exhibition

2 items

Lake Kaniere (described by Lewis Smith)

Conor Clarke

The Sky over Columbus (described by Shawn Lowe)

Conor Clarke

Related reading: #allart

Commentary

Touching Sight

Working in photography, textiles and painting, Conor Clarke (Ngāi Tahu), Emma Fitts and Oliver Perkins explore ideas of perception, both how we gain awareness through our senses, and the way in which something is interpreted or understood. Bulletin invited three writers to respond to the work in progress, to consider the materials and ways of making that each artist utilises. The resulting texts from Abby Cunnane, Fayen d’Evie and Chloe Lane are exploratory themselves, and offer us new ways of thinking about the works they relate to – as sensory items, as skins, as lichen.

Continued

Notes

All Art All Summer at Christchurch Art Gallery

In many ways, we’re all a captive audience this summer, and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū’s All Art All Summer season will bring local crowds face to face with work from local artists and some of its must-see treasures from 5 December 2020.

Notes

Touching Sight: Conor Clarke, Emma Fitts, Oliver Perkins

Touching Sight showcases exciting new work from three contemporary Ōtautahi artists, with a twist – it also enables people with blindness or low vision to experience contemporary art at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from Saturday 31 October.

B.