Visualising Art For The Visually Impaired

Against most gallery conventions, there are no "Do Not Touch" signs to be seen, or felt for that matter, at this exhibition. Touching the artworks is most definitely required here.

Fritha Hookway
March 11, 2012

Israeli artist, Roy Nachum, has deeply explored his belief that art should be accesible to everyone, by creating an exhibition dedicated to visualising art for the visually impaired. His latest body of work called Blind is a combination of painting and Braille signage.

Roy Nachum's background is heavily based in interior and spatial design. His exploration into the way that an individual not only uses, but experiences a space has seen him create a collection of award winning and innovative works of art. His heavily abstract approach has seen him traverse the spatial realm into digital - with recent pieces focusing on pixels as a central theme. It was a combination of this use of pixels, along with noting the irony of Braille signage at various art galleries, that spurred the research for his latest collection.

Nachum says "my hope is to strike a variety of emotional chords with blind readers/viewers that is similar, but not identical, to what different people with sight take away from a painting. I wanted to test our reliance on what we see and force different viewers to re-orient their perception of a work by also employing their sense of touch. Our visual sense is far more complex than we realise. Memory and imagination play a major part in our interpretation of what is actually in front of us. I want to open people's eyes".

Nachum's photo realistic oil paintings illustrate surrealistic images of a fantasy realm. He overlays them with Braielle as a double vision techinique to challenge those with sight to question the limitations of their vision. Each piece is paired with a poem that Nachum has written that has been inspired by the paintings.

Against most gallery conventions, there are no "Do Not Touch" signs to be seen, or felt for that matter, at this exhibition. Touching the artworks is most definitely required here.

Images from www.yazter.com


Published on March 11, 2012 by Fritha Hookway
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