Ground Water Mirror

Conor Clarke

Ilam Campus Gallery
University of Canterbury, Christchurch

21 June - 19 July 2019

Ground Water Mirror is a body of work conceived of in Berlin, and expanded on during a residency in Whanganui between 2017 - 2018. The exhibition features a series of photographs shot on medium format analogue film that contribute to a wider project involving video and sound.

Clarke is interested in attitudes towards nature that evolved during Romanticism and continue to dominate western ideology. She attempts to blur the false divide between nature and ourselves, depicting some of nature's most valued typologies like waterfalls and mountain peaks in often overlooked urban environments. Traditionally romanticised destinations become abstractions of the real world, where physical fact and inherited cultural associations combine to reflect that which we seek out, rather than that which is really there.

Conor Clarke (of Ngāi Tahu, Scottish and Welsh descent) grew up in rural South Auckland and has a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. She has exhibited regularly throughout Aotearoa, using the medium of photography to explore ecology, colonialism, land use and landscape representation. Based in Berlin since 2009, Clarke has recently relocated to Otautahi, Christchurch to begin as Lecturer in Photography at Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury. She is represented by Two Rooms Gallery, Auckland.

Read Emil McAvoy’s interview with Conor Clarke for PhotoForum