John Doherty lives in Watson’s Bay, Sidney, but was born in Kilkenny, and trained in the Bolton’s Street College, where he studied architecture in the late 60s, moving on to the National College of Art, Artist in Residence, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
His scrutiny of the subjects he paints is full on and intense. Old crumbling buildings on streets, old petrol pumps, lighthouses, buoys on quaysides, boats in disrepair are subjects that conjure up images of all our childhood lives, whethe
r we grew up in the country or in the city.
Things out of place, out of joint, things displaced, and signs hanging off are real, and yet when we see them in his paintings we question their future. A petrol pump abandoned would a appear on the surface to be a simple enough subject at first glance, but is it? Further investigation causes us to reflect on the wear and tear from the elements and from man’s use. And yet, it could represent something entirely different. Could this pump be putting emphasis on our dependence on fuel in the present international oil situation? Or could the pump represent a person? In conversation with the artist at the opening of one of his exhibitions, Doherty referred to pumps as having human like qualities. Is it then a symbol of abandonment? The choice is ours to engage with the subject or not.
Light and photography play an important part in Doherty’s work. His images are often weather-beaten and we embrace their shabbiness and faded colour. It is a kind reminder that like us, maintenance is a part of life, and yet its appearance conjures up images from our past that are both comforting and familiar.
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