CAG.3244 Mollie Douthit, Voting Day, 2023, oil on canvas panel, 36 x 46 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.
WORK OF THE WEEK!
As voting day (Friday 8 March) fast approaches, it’s good timing to focus on a small work by Mollie Douthit titled, you guessed it, Voting Day (2023)!
The painting records the appearance, from both aerial and frontal perspective, not of a polling station, but of a local doughnut shop. This is where the artist’s parents would bring their children – as enticement to get in the car on a freezing cold day – to carry out their democratic right.
Douthit depicts a darkened snowy setting, as the headlights of a parked car illuminate the façade of the low, red-roofed building. An ‘open’ sign in its doorway and glimpses of furnishings and foodstuffs inside suggest an inviting warmth on a bleak wintry day.
The artist’s work explores ‘how biography and memories are shaped through experiences, stories and objects.’ Referring to the source of these memories as ‘the file cabinet of my mind,’ she creates evocative scenes that sometimes, uncannily so, become visual triggers that resonate with our own personal experiences of place and time.
Originally from the United States, Mollie Douthit lives and works in West Cork. She holds degrees from the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks), School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and Burren College of Art (Ballyvaughan). Winning the Hennessy Craig Award in 2013, she has also been shortlisted for the New Sensations Prize and the John Moores Painting Prize. She was awarded an Arts Council bursary in 2023.
Three of the artist’s works – Lisa and I (2021), Cereal Bowls (2021), and Voting Day (2023) – are featured in our exhibition A MATTER OF TIME until 3 June.
Mollie Douthit’s solo exhibition, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, runs at the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny until 24 March.
