lou's eyes | june 3- june 27, 2004

Rachelle Viader Knowles at Peak Gallery
Globe and Mail | Saturday, June 19, 2004 | Page R11

Rachelle Viader Knowles at Peak Gallery
By GARY MICHAEL DAULT

This impressive exhibition by English-born, Welsh-trained artist Rachelle Viader Knowles is called Lou's Eyes. It is so called because the subject of the show is Knowles's friend, architect Louise Lockwood, a clearly charming and vivacious woman (if the photographs of her making up the exhibition are any guide) who is suffering, unfortunately, from a congenital disease called retinitis pigmentosa, an alarming condition that causes the retina to deteriorate from the outside in. Lockwood's field of vision is inexorably narrowing (she can now only see what is directly in front of her) until it reaches a point that will leave her totally blind.

But it would be wrong to assume that this dispiriting situation has made for a dark and lugubrious exhibition. On the contrary. Working in a manner consistent with what is, apparently, Lockwood's buoyant refusal to be brought low by her misfortune, Knowles has harvested photographs from Lockwood's family album, all of which show moments in the life of a most infectious and engaging young woman.
She has enlarged them, made a copy of each one and sandwiched them together on the gallery wall, having first cut out the rectangular eye-portion of the outer photograph.

This means that Lockwood's "eyes" are not missing so much as in recession. They lie, like her thoughts, at a greater depth from us than before. They also seem preternaturally penetrating from within their cave-like housings, and appear to follow you as you move past -- an effect that is not so much disconcerting as it is deeply moving. Suddenly there is a dialogue here that is more urgent than mere opticality can provide.

Added to the effect of these altered photographs are adjacent texts culled from Lockwood's own writings about the act of seeing. "Probably no two people in the world see things in the same way," reads one of them. This is certainly the case with Louise Lockwood -- and also with artist Rachelle Viader Knowles, who has here so thoughtfully enlarged our understanding of the preciousness of sight.

$2,400 each. Until June 27, 23 Morrow Ave., Toronto; 416-537-8108.