Willie Doherty

I have briefly looked into the work of Willie Doherty as suggested by my tutor.

Born in Northern Ireland in 1959, he continues to work there today. His work appears very focussed around political views surrounding this country. On his website Williedoherty.com, we see a lot of his work centred around isolation, graffiti, abandonment, burning or burned out cars. I see it as not so much a documentary style but it definitely addresses the political factors I think of when I think about Northern Ireland like War and terror.
The photographs and videos are addressing what has happened there and they have an overwhelming sense of reality as opposed to being staged in any way. It's documenting what is there at the time the photographs were taken which hold a scar of what has happened there before. As most of his work holds the same subject area, you can see Doherty's personal voice about his country and his work.
I think my tutor was wanting me to look more at how he includes text within his photographs and I will say that I find them quite powerful. The photographs depict the reality of the borders and a feeling of being caged or enclosed behind barriers or the wishes of freedom and the future. The text Doherty has included on each photograph, even though they are minimal, only heighten and bring home exactly what he is trying to tell you.

When it comes to text within my own work, I also feel the need to included words to really hone in on what the pictures already tell you. The words make the images stronger. To see, for example, five photographs of my husband on his phone might seem excessive to some but nothing to others. Looking closer, you may see he has the same clothes on in them all, maybe he wore them more than once, maybe they are all in one day. But adding the text really accentuates the fact that all five photographs were not only taken the same day, but every hour for five hours (as an example of course). The text can add that extra level to the photographs. Just like it does in Doherty's work.

References:

Doherty, W., (2017), 'Willie Doherty' [Online], Available at: http://williedoherty.com/home, [Accessed May 2nd 2017]
Lack, J., (2009), 'Artist of the week 38: Willie Doherty' [Online], Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/apr/22/willie-doherty-artist-of-the-week-troubles, [Accessed May 2nd 2017]