PHOTO: Finn at opening of Exhibition “An Itch and A Scream” at Touch base Pears

Finn Visual Art Exhibition. Now Open: Monday, June 17, 2019 to Friday, July 26, 2019 – all day. TouchBase Pears at 750 Bristol Road, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, B29 6NA.

In 2019, Finn had an artist residency at SENSE, flagship building Touch Base Pears. The residency titled, Life & Deaf led to the first exhibition of visual arts by a Deaf blind professional artist at Touch Base Pears. The project was funded by Arts Council England.

PHOTO: Sunney Sharma, Arts and Wellbeing Co-ordinator at TouchBase pears and artist Finn

At the opening of his exhibition at Touch Base Pears, Finn commented,
“My wife has said in the past that my work should be on exhibition, but I never believed her. It is only by meeting the right the people: Dash, Deaf Explorer, Sense.

Suddenly, I felt that I had the potential to be an artist through mentoring with Artist Dean Melbourne. He saw that I had the gift of telling stories through patterns; let’s face it, I will never be a portrait artist or a landscape artist – I can’t see.

Photo: “Analogue Age” – Pattern’s exhibition January 2019 – Beginning Finn’s Life & Deaf Residency at Touch Base Pears.

The First exhibition I had at Sense consisted of ten A3 size prints and they represented memories from analogue to digital age. Finn, “My earliest memory is my father banging the television trying to get it to work. The zig zags took me days to perfect. To create the sense of the fist bashing against the timber of the television” 

Photo: Wheels is an expression of my biggest loss

The pattern “Wheels” is about my biggest loss. The love of driving. I have always been a petrol head, began with roller skates, go-karts. I customised a 1956 Ford Popular, build two kit cars. With loss of vision I feel like I am going backwards to nothing. This why the pattern going backwards and down- hill.

Finn said, “My first exhibition in January 2019 at Touch Base Pears was a massive surprise.” It described a secret life, of living with progressive sight loss in a Deaf world.  Audiences Tweeted, “Loving the exhibition – such graceful, intricate images”

PHOTO: Arts Consultant Helga Henry and Finn

Helga Henry tweeted “I urge you all to see experience this aesthetically pleasing and unexpectedly moving and beautifully rendered show”

This current  exhibition, my second show at TouchBase Pears is called An itch and a scream. An exploration of grief at both bereavement and sensory loss, Finn finds light and hope in his darkest moments.

Photo: The Muse

Finn described the picture, “The Muse”. As the starting point for all the pictures. The motif is based on a decorative tile that his father bought on a trip to Spain, but never used. The title of another  artwork is “Isolation”, accompanying the picture is Finn’s description:  “I was born Deaf but I didn’t start to lose my sight until a few years ago. I was well prepared to lose my own sight. But I was not prepared for the isolation. As my sight reduced the sense of being cut off increased. I can sense people are physically near but I can’t read them emotionally, are they happy? Are they sad? What is their mood? What are they saying? What are they thinking? I have no idea!

There are an estimated 424,944 DeafBlind people.

Blind people can hear laughters

Deaf People can see sadness.

Deaf Blind people….. can’t.

In a picture titled, Depression, Finn says, ”It is in the lowest moments that you realise just how dependant you are on others.”  In a picture titled Liberation, Finn celebrates,  “You can be as important and earnest as the next person. And you must not let anyone define your limitations because of what your disabilities are. Your only limit is your beliefs.”  

Finn says, with each picture, I tell my story of the hardships of a Deafblind person.

My next project will be a more happy project.

Blog Post about Patterns exhibition

patternsfrogsporn

Spiders Web (Left):

Growing up in the country, I saw beautiful spiders webs. I love Dewdrop’s hanging off the spiders web very beautifulI. l can no longer see that anymore, what I see is a tangled mess. The pattern is my interpretation of a spiders web. My daughter Isabella can see spiders webs. My daughter will lose her sight one day. I tell her to embrace the experience. And remember a spiders web.

Frog Spawn (Right) :

I have started to “see” things from my memories as a sighted child. I lived in an extreme rural part of the country. Growing up on a farm, I was witness to many natural things, the welfare of the animals, the climate hardship and I first became aware of the fragility of life.
I choose “The Frog Spawn” from my childhood memory when I was sighted child because I was often transfixed by the “Birth of Life”.
The Frog Spawn is one of the few species that at the beginning of life you can actually see from your naked eye. It’s also shows the amazing transformation from that of an egg to a tadpole and into a frog. This is my interpretation of Frog spawn, from my perspective,

Watch Finn’s video about his next digital project

Watch Finn’s pitch to be a pioneer of Haptic Art

IMG_0348
Example of the research about making my digital prints tactile for Deaf blind audiences, inspired by the residency at SENSE Touch base Pears, Birmingham