Willie Doherty - Wolverhampton Art gallery - 23rd Jan 2012

Willie Doherty exhibition

19th Nov - 28th Jan 2012

First of all can I just start by saying I went straight into the exhibition space and went and watched the two video pieces before I began to examine the photography. They were in complete darkness, and the walls were sound proofed with foam so you could watch one video and then the other without hearing the other outside. The first video I watched was Ghost story, 2007, 15 minutes long, colour, sound, single screened installation, narrated by Stephen Rea.

I sat down in complete darkness, no one else was in there. There were no other light source apart from that of the screen, a man spoke clearly and slowly as if he were telling a story, in particular a haunting story of the past.

I know a little of Willie Doherty and his work on the Irish politics and religion conflicts, so already I had an idea what the work would be about. For someone who knew nothing of his work, would still feel the same foreboding and sadness created from the imagery and the narrative. The video showed a long straight path in the distance, the shot always moving closer, but never quite reaching the end of the path, in the distance you can almost see figures or shapes in the shadows of the trees. The video carries on moving in across shots of trees, along edges of paths, panning across forests, it looks very gloomy and grey, it had just been raining and everything is wet and dark in colour. It moves with the narrative, you see someone under a passage leaning against a wall at night in the city like a point of view shot you feel like you are walking in the narrators shoes. The shot moves across a disused car park, the camera walks you in closer to a car that travels across your path. The narrative is spoken as if the person is talking about something that happened along time ago, in his youth and the fact he can remember and talk about it quite vividly tells us it still haunts him, and he hasn't got over it.

The other video 'Buried, 2009' 8 minutes, colour, sound, single screened installation. Buried has no narrative, but there is a booming and almost painful echo of sounds. The imagery is of a forest, trees, the earth, into the distance, pin pointing abandoned and misplaced objects such as plastic remains, a coat over a rock, a shot gun cartridge, wire and evidence of a fire. The shots are quite still and very low, but as you stare they seem to expand but you can't quite see it happening. It is very malevolent, like it is showing us where all the hatred and violence has ended up, echoing around the forest floors forever more. The sounds are of the natural ambience with the sounds of crowds from the early 1970's, slowly the natural sounds drown out the sounds of the crowds. Both videos are looped, continually moving with no end or beginning, adding to the notion that it can not the escaped from, and it is never ending.

The images outside of the video area, directly correspond to the videos. I think you need to watch the videos first in order to get a better response to the exhibition on a whole. There are no informative plaques about the work, just a section at one far end of the space with titles, and dates of the work. The artist did not want them next to each piece and he did not want any information available about the work, he wanted the audience to see his work from a completely neutral point of view something the artist can not do because of his up bringing and his personal experiences concerning the topics.