At the Border II - (Low Visibility)

Artist Willie Doherty (b. 1959)

Date1995

MediumCibachrome on aluminium

Dimensions122 x 183 cm

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Purchased from the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, 1996. © Willie Doherty.

Object number1898

DescriptionWillie Doherty is primarily a conceptual artist working mainly with photography, film and video. His work has reached a wide international audience through his having twice been a Turner Prize nominee (1994 and 2003) and through his inclusion in several biennales, most recently that at Venice in 2005. His work has consistently explored problems of representation, in particular in the context of the politics of his native Northern Ireland, and reflects upon the way in which events there have been represented in the press and media and how the image of a situation becomes the primary experience of that situation.

'At the Border II - (Low Visibility)' is one of a series of cibachromes that, by its title, invokes universal notions of territory and division, themes that Doherty began addressing in the 1980s. It presents a view of a gravelled road shot from a low angle from which tyre tracks wheel sharply, while in the distance are the approaching headlights of a car. The viewpoint implies an onlooker's poised presence. The low visibility rendered by the night-time light combined with the downward perspective of the image heighten its psychological charge and invoke fluctuating notions of identity and emotions that range from anxiety to fear and paranoia. Such indeterminacy is implicit in all of Doherty's work. (CK)

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