Contested land

Willie Doherty, Dead Pool II, 2011

At first sight, Willie Doherty’s recent photographs – included, along with works from throughout Doherty’s career, in the exhibition Disturbance, currently at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne – are beatiful if somewhat bleak images of a desolate  landscape. But like all Doherty’s work the subject matter is Northern Ireland and even that basic level of knowledge – coupled with the titles of works such as Dead Pool II or Seepage – means that the photographs carry a very different resonance.

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