This then is the subject, location and framework for much of Doherty's work. His use of photography is apt, as he is concerned with issues of personal freedom and identity.As well as working from his own photographs of deserted streets and blighted urban landscapes, Doherty has increasingly begun to appropriate images from television and newspapers, seeking to highlight the unconscious process of criminalisation that can often begin before any crime has been committed. Doherty also uses his own camera to highlight this process, and through gentle and oblique texts, marks out carefully the additional use of language as a divisive weapon. He is careful not to express partisan opinions in his work, but rather addresses the more universal issues confronting the people of his city.

Doherty does not reserve his wry commentaries entirely for his native city, but has turned an equally questioning eye towards the pretences and aspirations of the Republic. The photomontages here refer to different aspects of 'Free State' culture, and show architectural details of Dublin which have a symbolic role in the history of the Free State; the General Post Office, scene of the 1916 Rising and the cobblestones of Trinity College. Over these images, Doherty has laid words which gently chide the aspirations of the Republic. 'Evergreen Memories' over the GPO clock might be read as an ironic commentary on the alacrity with which recent Irish governments have sought to distance themselves from 1916. In these works, Doherty strips away that ardent partisanship which characterises most discourses on Northern Ireland. Like Jeff Wall, Ken Lum and other Vancouver artists who produce similarly detached and ironic photographic works, Doherty deliberately sets out to make a peripheral city the centre of his investigation.

The Panels Read

EVERGREEN MEMORIES

RESOLUTE

PHSYCOPATHIC

CURSED EXISTENCE

[PM]

Lit. - Cameron, 1993