‘Do what you want because you can’

Three blind artists from across Australia have come together to put on an exhibition entitled My Vision Works 2022, which will be opening July 13.

Held at Gasworks, the exhibition is being spearheaded by Jewish artist and Melbourne local Madeleine Popper, who lost her sight around 20 years ago.

Popper said the reason she decided to set this exhibition in motion is because “you should do what you want because you can”.

When Popper lost her sight she said that the eye specialist informed her that she “would not be able to drive, read, see people’s faces, and it was devastating to me as an artist”.

Since losing her sight, however, the Parisian-born artist has continued painting in a distinctive finger-painting style. She explained that her paintings reflect her love of colours, adding, “I feel joy in daubing my fingers in paint, then manipulating it with different motions.”

Popper also shared that there are many influences to her work including her “surroundings, a story, a sound”.

“I am an observer, inquisitive, never wanting to miss out,” she said.

Popper secured Gasworks to host the exhibition earlier in the year, saying, “Gasworks was very helpful and supportive. I went straight to them. I didn’t even try anybody else because I’d gone through that exercise 13 years ago, and I got a lot of knockbacks.”

Popper hopes to bring awareness to disabled and blind artists across Melbourne, bringing on fellow legally blind artists Jack Fitz-Walter and Claire Hogan to showcase their work alongside hers in My Vision Works.

Hogan who has sold 48 artworks has dominant optic atrophy, a genetic condition that affects the sight.

Hogan explained that sometimes if she is drawing a figure and wants to put a white fleck in an eye, “it may end up on the eyebrow”.

“It may take 15 tries but it eventually works to my satisfaction. Often people comment on details such as, ‘I love the blue earrings.’ Or ‘how did you get the circle so perfect?’ I can’t see that the earrings are blue, and the circle I do with my eyes shut.”

As a legally blind artist Hogan said that she has had to learn “not to get frustrated”, adding, “My aim is to be a mentor for other artists with low vision; and share hints on how to deal with challenges.”

She described her artwork as “authentic,” because she doesn’t have any corrections made by others: “It is my work with my idiosyncrasies and imagination.”

Fitz-Walter lives in Brisbane and has had a lifelong involvement in the arts, since his acquired brain injury and sight loss his practice involves haptic techniques involving making matrices of colours creating uniform illusionary surfaces.

The exhibition coincides with Thrive Festival, which will take place on July 24, and is a celebration of local deaf and disabled artists.

My Vision Works 2022 will take place from July 13 to 31, 10am-5pm every day at Gasworks Arts Park Foyer Gallery, 1-35 Graham Street, Albert Park.