Disability Arts Online

My 3D artwork banner exhibition is now on show in Exeter Cathedral’s Nave until 31st August 2012.  The exhibition is made up of twenty eight 3D images that are hanging from the Cathedral Nave’s fourteen giant columns.

Visitors experience the 3D effect by using red/blue 3D glasses.  The 3D technique is called ‘anaglyph’ and dates back to the 1850s.

I’ve created 3D anaglyph images for the past 35 years.  I was taught 3D photography by the late Northumbria University lecturer, Alistair Park.  Alistair was a 3D photography expert, but at the time of teaching me 3D, he was blind in one eye caused by a road accident.  This meant that he could no longer see in 3D.

It is ironic that I’m now exhibiting a 3D exhibition that, due to my stroke, I can’t experience in 3D most of the time.  My stroke affected the convergence of my eyes which causes double vision.  In turn, this means that my brain can’t always blend left and right images to create 3D vision when convergence fails. 

As a result, during the creation of the Cathedral 3D banners I’ve regularly had to rely on my wife Sara and my daughter Kelsey to confirm that what I’ve produced is in 3D.

When this happens I regularly think about Alistair Park.

As a disabled artist, I’m intrigued by how I’m drawn to things I am no longer able to do because of my disability.  Is it to prove that I’m ‘normal’ or is it to find closure of some kind?  I simply don’t know.'