Remnant consists of a series of black and white photographic prints, and a multi-channel 4K video layered with an ambient soundtrack and a spoken word voiceover performed by Stephen Rea.
Fusing voice and soundscape with still and moving images, Remnant explores the interconnectedness of place, time, and memory.
In this haunting and immersive work, landscape acts as a repository – a site to construct images and myths of national identity, of self, and of others. With the passage of time, the histories of these places transform, becoming unstable, the fictions of memory.
Remnant investigates remembrance as a measure of time and space, of dislocation and connection, of what is real and what is imagined.
Making a return to black and white, Willie Doherty’s recent works echo his early photographs. However, where those early works often juxtaposed still images with text overlays, here stills and very subtly moving images are overlayed aurally with the artist’s text read aloud.
Infused with melancholy, the works are captivating and demand to be lingered with. While the works may seem less overtly political than earlier pieces they retain echoes of motifs we associate closely with Doherty which pervade the scenes with a sombre feeling of foreboding and disquiet.
Doherty has worked with Matt’s Gallery since 1990. This is his 11th exhibition with us. In 1994, his second show, The Only Good One is a Dead One, became the first moving image work to be nominated for the Turner Prize. Doherty was again nominated in 2003.
Following its exhibition at Solstice Arts Centre, Ireland earlier this year, Remnant will be reconfigured for Matt’s Gallery’s space in Nine Elms.
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