Susan O’DohertyNature of Time

three little queen streetchippendale nsw 2008 tel 9318 2992ng@ngart.com.auwww.ngart.com.autue — sat 10am — 10pm

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Susan O’DohertyNature of Time

Nature of Time 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 80 x 44 x 22 cmSusan O’Doherty in her studio

Susan O’DohertyA Poetic Thrift

The Nature of Time: Ticking clock minds and hinged suspenders… a midriff fully occupied by a maternal koala and her joey…the centre and heart of a body made of fragments (and of another simulacra)….sitting atop the counting, atop a game, atop a measuring, of an associative domino effect, suggestive of the ticking female body clock cycle, and, a moment of reflection for the artist.

In Time Scale the literal title plays with our thoughts as much as the items contained in this carry-handled box and permit the viewer (and maker) to enjoy an associative visual play. The aged green enamel casings of the clock and scales are redolent of time past, still capable but outmoded devices. We imagine the key components crushed together should the box resume its purpose and be closed. Clock pressed to scales, time compressed to weight, suggesting implicitly a simultaneous measurement at one moment in time. Two measuring devices crushing together to exclude that being measured; a physical elapse of body and mind. And so on.

Through these assemblages and constructions, which are at the centre of Susan O’Doherty’s practice,capsules of accumulated connections across time using ready-made forms, objects and itemsscavenged are collected and associatively re-presented. Her paintings mark time through a more conventional pictorial equivalent to her central concerns, but sustain this persistent enquiry. As the artist states ‘this body of work relates to the passing of time, the ethereal nature of time, recollections,experiences - lives lived and awareness of mortality.’

Susan O’Doherty’s work presents an allusive circuitry of recollection and connection, of collection andre-connection. As Bakelite dominoes remind us of childhood and old age games, memories unite andimplicitly combine in this literal pastime to punctuate our sense of searching for a lost time. These, and similarly the other identifiable objects, remind us of lost experience and of a conditional urge to attempt to piece these sensations information back together. Another means of marking time, with our predilection for measurement, for comparability, for observation and record.

These works connect to an extensive tradition of women artists using the ready-made to forge potentassociation, from Meret Oppenheim to Sarah Lucas; and also something of the confessional. A consist-ent thematic is elicited through these diminutive and portable tableaux, conveying a direct and vividpresence through their sense of miniaturised and domestic theatre. The associations of poetry and music that permeate the earlier work continue from her previous exhibitions, A Perfect Woman to It’s a Man’s World, and facilitate a further layer of reading and association that punctuates the experience of time passing and facilitate recollection.

These diorama-like passages of time present a clash of quantitative and qualitative information that bridge a need to integrate experiences, to demonstrate an understanding in these assembledvignettes of incident, re-enactment and embodiment. A piecing together of signs to reinforce orre-engage with the present. This is an artistic practice by which ecological and ethical concerns arerealised through a constructed commentary and association. Susan O’ Doherty crafts new from the old, pours tenderness and empathy on the discarded and abandoned, and seeks to revive andregenerate once-loved, once-essential items of the past. Her thrift aesthetic conveys something more pressing about our paradoxical time than each piece in isolation, as she persistently roves and gleans in pursuit of creatively imbuing new life and meaning, and embracing the past within the present.

Professor Anita TaylorDirectorNational Art School

Thrift is the really romantic thing:economy is more romantic thanextravagance… thrift is poeticbecause it is creative… G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World

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6 7Letters 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 120 x 120 x 10cmWorker #2 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 90 x 42 x 12 cm Worker 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 90 x 42 x 12 cm

8 9Fragile 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 120 x 120 x 10cm

Tricycle 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 80 x 40 x 25cm

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3 0’Clock 2011 Mixed Media Assemblage 60 x 72 x 15cm

Time Scale 2011 Mixed Media Assemblage 32 x 66 x 15cm

12 13‘Divorce’ 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 80 x 76 x 15 cmAutomatic 2012 Mixed Media Assemblage 110 x 80 x 20cm

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Warragamba 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 152cmJamison Valley 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 152cm

16 17Reservoir 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 122 cmHarvest 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 137 x 76cm

18 19Fields 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 152cmBlaze 2012 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 152 cm

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Tangled 2011 Acrylic on Canvas 122 x 162 cm

Escarpment 2011 Acrylic on Canvas 102 x 91cm

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Door 2012 Wood Construction 42 x 48cmWindow 2012 Wood Construction 27 x 28xm

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Gate 2012 Wood Construction 30 x 34cm

Front 2012 Wood Construction 35 x 38cm Dive 2012 Wood Construction 28 x 32cm

Balance 2012 Wood Construction 30 x 30cm Link 2012 Wood Construction 30 x 30cm

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Yard 2012 Wood Construction 35 x 38cmShed 2012 Wood Construction 34 x 38cm

Susan O’Doherty

Born 1960 Brisbane

Solo Exhibitions

2012 Time Pieces, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne2011 It’s a Man’s World, NG Art Gallery, Sydney2010 The Perfect Woman, NG Art Gallery, Sydney2009 900 Eyes, Maitland Regional Art Gallery2009 900 Eyes, Tweed River Regional Art Gallery2008 900 Eyes / Domestic Lives, Manly Regional Art Gallery and Museum2005 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney2005 Span Galleries, Melbourne2004 Gadfly Gallery, Perth2004 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney2003 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney2003 Doggett Street Studios, Brisbane2002 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney2002 Doggett Street Studios, Brisbane2002 Jackman Gallery, Melbourne2002 Bowen Galleries, Wellington, New Zealand2001 Barry Stern Galleries, Sydney2001 Jackman Gallery, Melbourne2001 Doggett Street Studios, Brisbane2000 Mary Place Gallery, Sydney2000 Jackman Gallery, Melbourne1999 Atrium Gallery, ABC Building, Sydney1999 Jackman Gallery, Melbourne1999 Mary Place Gallery, Sydney1998 Mary Place Gallery, Sydney1998 Atrium Gallery, ABC Building, Sydney

Selected Group Exhibitions

2012 In Two Art, Orange Regional Gallery2012 In Two Art, SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney2012 The Animal Show, King Street Gallery on William, Sydney2011 Distant Bridges – Amnesty International, NG Art Gallery, Sydney2011 Stations of the Cross, St Ives Uniting Church2010 In Two Art, Maitland Regional Art Gallery2009 ReImag(in)ing SomaSex, Maquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney2009 Mosman Art Prize, Sydney2009 Taronga Zoo ( Sydney ) – Artist in Residence2009 A Bar Called Home, NG Art Gallery, Sydney2006 Cadrys Art Prize, Sydney2006 Joshua Holland Leukemia Fund Art Auction, Sydney2006 Conservatorium of Music Art Auction, Sydney2005 Cadrys Art Prize, Sydney2004 Dublin Art Fair, Ireland2004 Mosman Art Prize, Sydney2004 Norvill Art Prize, Sydney2003 Mosman Art Prize, Sydney2003 Sceggs Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Sydney2001 ANCA Gallery, Canberra2000 Mosman Art Prize1998 Sceggs Redlands Westpac Art Prize

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Susan O’Doherty

Publications

2011 Andrew Frost, It’s a Man’s World, Sydney Morning Herald, June 32011 Artist Profile Magazine, Process - Susan O’Doherty, Issue 15, May2011 Andrew Frost, Metro Art, Sydney Morning Herald, June 232011 Leesa Smith, Gender War Shown in Art, The Southern Courier, May 242011 Elizabeth Fortescue, Man That’s So True, Daily Telegraph, May 302011 The Spectrum Open Gallery, Sydney Morning Herald, June 4-52011 Ashleigh Wilson, Artist’s Capture the Pain in Asylum Plight, SMH, Jan 182010 Raylene Bliss, Plastic Not So Fantastic, Concrete Playground, March 282010 Lissa Christopher, Open Gallery, SMH, April 10-11 2010 Steve Dow, A Toy Story With a Twist, The Big Picture, The Sun Herald, March 28 2010 Hannah Gadsby Goes Domestic, Artscape ABC1, July2010 Annemarie Lopez, The Perfect Woman, The Sydney Magazine, SMH, Issue 84, April2009 Sam Rigney, All Eyes On Maitland Gallery New Work, Maitland Mercury, Oct 232009 Marina Saint Martin, 900 Eyes, Paradise Magazine, Gold Coast Bulletin, June 262009 Kristie Lau, Waiting, a Still Life, Arts, Sun Herald, June 262009 Steve Meacham, One For The Birds (Taronga Zoo Artist in Residence), SMH, May 202009 Aparha Khopkar, A Bar To Call Home, Visual Arts, SMH, April 92008 Rod Bennett, The Changing Faces Of Art, The Manly Daily, Dec 12 2008 Katrina Lobley, A Sea Of Faces, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 292006 Stephen Lacey, Peter and Susan O’Doherty, Arts, Sydney Morning Herald, March 92005 Elizabeth Fortescue, Show Of Harmony, The Daily Telegraph, Sept 232004 Cover Artwork and page 46, Glorious Gloom, Australian Art Revue, Issue 05, July – Oct2002 Diana Simmonds, Ideas For Artists To Canvas, Sunday Telegraph, June 92002 Tom Cardy, Wedded To Their Art, Evening Post , Wellington New Zealand, April 181999 Catherine Lambert, Mind Over New Matter, Arts Section, Sun Herald, Aug 11998 Julia Richardson, At Ease, Our House Magazine, April1997 Jennifer Reed, Artful Design, Tempo, Sun Herald, Nov 21997 Peter Cochrane, Metro Arts, Sydney Morning Herald, July 121997 Bronwyn Mailing, Portrait Of The Artist, Country Looks Magazine, April1997 Michael Smith, Art For Art’s Sake, Drum Media, April 18

30 31Shower 2011 Acrylic on Canvas 152 x 152 cm

three little queen street chippendale nsw 2008 tel 9318 2992ng@ngart.com.au www.ngart.com.au tue — sat 10am — 10pm