Conor Clarke

Conor Clarke (Ngāi Tahu, Scottish, Welsh) graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2005. Since graduating, Clarke has exhibited regularly throughout New Zealand, using the medium of photography to explore ecology, conceptions of nature, critical and post-colonial re-readings of Romanticism and the ongoing effects of industrialisation on land use and its representation. Clarke has spent the last decade based between Berlin and Aotearoa, amassing an impressive body of work that blends aspects of both conceptual and documentary photography.

Her ongoing studio-based practice probes the cultural and ecological impacts of photography, continually testing its capacity for critical reflection, while questioning the ongoing role of contemporary of image-making in human-centered constructions of nature. Clarke has been the recipient of several residencies including Tylee Cottage Residency (2017) and Waitawa Park (2015) and has recently returned to Aotearoa New Zealand to take up an academic position as Lecturer in Photography at Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury. Recent exhibitions include, Unchained Melody, COCA, Christchurch (2019), Ground Water Mirror, SoFa, Ilam Campus Gallery, Christchurch (2019), The End of Wordsworth Street, Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui (2018), Scenic Potential, Billboard Project, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland (2016), In Pursuit of the Picturesque: In Pictures (Observations from New Zealand), Giftraum, Berlin (2014).