Clarke Reynolds, Lockdown Works
Lockdown down for me at the start made me angry as this was the year I was going to make an impact outside of Portsmouth the last two years have been amazing being nominated for best visual artist of the year by the Portsmouth guide awards having my first solo exhibition last year I was on the verge of something big as I had another exhibition all about Braille talks workshops planned even a walk round the Houses of Parliament to discuss the use of Braille. But unfortunately that wasn’t meant to be and as I’m locked out of my studio and homeschooling my little one I still had to be creative as this situation for a blind person is hard especially going out how am I supposed to know what two metres looks like plus as a visually impaired person I’m always touching things to navigate the world . So I’ve been very busy creating textile and 3D works inspired by lockdown using the English language as my guide and how words make us feel so the pieces I present too you are how I’m feeling and I hope after all this is over there will be a venue where my art can be hung and touched as obviously it would be good to touch.
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Writing lines ( I must remember too look )
Inspired by forgetting your home work or p e kit in school we had to write lines in detention so being detained in lockdown I wrote I must remember too look in Braille and the same phrase in reverse as an ironic phrase for a visually impaired person who can’t see.
I’ve used black buttons on yellow fabric as it’s the colour contrast visually impaired person gets in documents
90 x 50cm
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HOPE n LOVE
Inspired by the icon of a rainbow that is being shown across UK in windows as a sign of hope I’ve spelt out HOPE and LOVE in Braille and in each dot there is a stylistic rainbow all hand stitched in coloured wool plus as you go up it’s the colours of the rainbow
100cm square
3 STAY SAFE
Using the slogan during lock down I spelt out stay safe in Braille and each dot has an invisible shadow which represents the shadow of the situation and inside the dot is various horizontal and vertical lines to represent lock down hand stitched in blue a somber colour.
100cm square
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Social Distancing ( what a…. feels like )