SUSAN O’DOHERTY’S EXHIBITION ‘PINNED TO THE WALL’ @ SPOT 81 GALLERY CHIPPENDALE

PINNED TO THE WALL is a highly charged series of new work by Sydney artist Susan O’Doherty that uses discarded domestic items to explore themes of gender inequality and family violence.

Working across assemblage, painting and sculpture, O’Doherty has purposely collected familiar and nostalgic objects to help map her contemporary storytelling and to bring the private into a public message.

Susan O’Doherty began working on this exhibition three years ago collecting objects by design. Her trademark use of vintage items was intentionally chosen and placed to convey harmony or dissonance or something intangible in between.

O’Doherty’s aesthetic is visually pleasing yet confronting as she suggests the calm and chaos that could exist in the domestic ideal, the perfect home. As you move through the exhibition, there’s an intense and dark underbelly lurking. Nothing is as perfect as it seems.

As a substantial statement PINNED TO THE WALL is speaking openly about domestic violence. By humanizing inanimate things Susan O’Doherty’s project puts a face to the object, a name to the number, a story to the statistic.

PINNED TO THE WALL opens in Sydney at Spot 81 Gallery, Chippendale, on 23 November running to 04 December 2016, before travelling to Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery, NSW, 03 March – 22 April 2017.