Journey by Dots

Journey by Dots April 2022-June 2022

Clarke Reynolds at Aspex Portsmouth

Contemporary solo exhibition – A return to where it all began

“This is my Roy of the Rovers moment.”

That’s how Clarke Reynolds — the Blind Braille Artist — describes Journey by Dots, a powerful and personal solo exhibition held at Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth: the very gallery that first lit his creative spark at the age of six.

Decades later, Clarke returned not as a visitor, but as a celebrated artist, transforming the gallery into an immersive, UV-lit universe that could only be fully understood through touch.

Journey by Dots charts three deeply emotional paths through life, blindness, and identity — each one mapped out in Clarke’s signature colour-coded Braille, glowing under black light in a gallery bathed in darkness. Visitors were guided by vibrant UV-lit tiles and installations, inviting them to physically walk the journey — one step, one dot at a time.

The centrepiece of the exhibition was a series of nine large scale tactile artworks, each forming a chapter in Clarke’s story. They are not just art pieces — they are autobiographies written in a language the world is learning to read through touch. Each dot, each hue, each embossed letter was a heartbeat from his life.

In this space, seeing becomes feeling. Sighted visitors are encouraged to experience what it’s like to rely on their hands, not their eyes. It’s an emotional recalibration — and a deeply human one.

“To truly understand me, you have to
touch me — not just the art, but the
journey, the struggle, the joy. This
exhibition isn’t about
loss. It’s about what’s gained when you dare to feel.”

Journey by Dots is not just an exhibition — it’s a manifesto. A declaration that visual art can be inclusive, that blindness can be beautiful, and that the dots we follow through life don’t always need to be joined by sight — sometimes, they’re connected by emotion.

And for Clarke Reynolds, standing in the very gallery where his dream began, this exhibition marked a full-circle moment. Not just as an artist. But as a storyteller in Braille.