"Almost a century ago, the documentation of actions, situations, performances replaced the sacrosanct art object. Modernist idealism died. With every Surrealist or Dadaist mêlée, art and it's objects were torn, shattered, turned upside down and left to fend for themselves in a world going to hell with handcart. Glasgow-based Maurice Doherty works in this Dadaist tradition, trying it to the no nonsense clarity of conceptual art. His lens based, sculptural and two-dimensional work is always funny, but the humour is black. These are dark times. "   

'The Art Of Memory' - The List - Alexander Kennedy 

"As the machine builds relentlessly towards its inevitable final spin with the pre-ordained result that bowl, water and fish will fall to the floor, we come close to Heidegger's claim in 'Being and Time' that the fundamental existential experience of Dasein is 'anticipation', or more precisely, the anticipation of death. Is Eternal Rotation an image of a Heideggerian being-towards-death? Needless to say, the fish falls as machine completes its orgasmic spin, indifferent to the uncertain fate of its victim. As Eternal Rotation demonstrates, when Doherty is on target he is infinitely rewarding." 

'Eternal Rotation' - Artist's Newsletter - Ross Birrell

"An alchemist would take something base and hope to change it into a higher value. Doherty selects something accessible and badly addictive, and transforms it into something adorable and unreachable and beautiful....His distinctive switching of the scene from light to dark, from burning cigarettes to a night sky, posits the work into a matrix of conflicts and paradoxes of art, knowledge and existence...The role of time changes according to the subject's 'appropriate paradox': the Self is governed by natural law, the athlete's time is artificially prolonged, and the universe's eternity is cut short by the dying out of burning cigarette ends." 

'Maurice Doherty - Catalyst Arts, Belfast' - Circa Art Magazine - Slavka Sverakova



 

lives and works in Glasgow

1999-2001 - Masters Degree in Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art                
1994-1997 - BA Honours Fine Art, University of Ulster, Belfast  
1991-1992 - Foundation Art and Design, John Moores University, Liverpool
 

http://www.mauricedoherty.com

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