Visual, Tactile and Verbal Correlations - Conor Clarke reviewed

As Far as the Eye Can Reach

Conor Clarke

Two Rooms

4 June - 3 July 2021

Reviewed by John Hurrell for EyeContact – 20 June, 2021

Each of the ten photographs in As Far as the Eye can Reach is made with a pinhole camera so the image is fuzzy. Each is accompanied by a sound track of the artist reading descriptions of memorable places (or land/sky forms) written by blind or sight-impaired people. These texts (each with a QR code so they can be accessed in audio form by gallery visitors' smart phones) have guided the artist in her creation of imagery, and are also written in braille embossed onto a rectangle of clear film placed in each work's centre.

Conor Clarke, Cave Stream (described by Jo Froggatt) 2020
C-type prints, braille (PVC, UV ink) 950 x 760 mm

Visual, Tactile and Verbal Correlations

Examining the relationship between language and the imagery that generates it is a well known theme that never seems to become exhausted. Both Sophie Calle and Sol LeWitt, for example, have made works that pair off verbal description (one from a blind person describing a memory so that the visual component could be created or discovered by the artist, the other where the artist describes in detail a drawing he wants to create and gives those instructions to an assistant) with image—inevitably evoking comparisons and showcasing discrepancies.

Conor Clarke‘s show has a clever title because it suggests that the eye is like an extended arm, and has physical limitations. It also allows ‘reach’ to be mistakenly seen as ‘read’, hinting also that optical sensation is language-based and embedded in interpretation.

Read the full review on EyeContact