Lucy O’Doherty (b.1986) lives and works on Gadigal Land in Sydney, Australia. O’Doherty’s practice is defined by her motif oil pastel drawings on paper and oil paintings on canvas which possess a dreamlike nature. Blending hard lines until they dissolve into each other, O’Doherty’s landscapes and subject paintings possess a soothing ambience to them which enables the viewer's eye to sweep freely over the canvas between tones and forms. Drawing inspiration from memories, dreams, and ethereal moments in both landscape and domestic realms, O’Doherty’s soft pastel drawings and oil paintings feature subjects like period specific architecture, empty restaurants, pools, and the immersive experience of light.
Technicolour Haze presents an oeuvre of pieces which draw their subject matter from disparate origins. Architectural observations are consumed and synthesised through O’Doherty’s painting and blending methodologies to create ethereal and sublime renditions of physical places the artist has visited or surreal and transcendental scapes conjured from faded memories, dreams and the imagination. Paint and pastels are pushed, smeared and blended across paper and canvas to provoke sentiments of nostalgia and distant familiarity of a cinematic ilk. Featured are domestic structures from Ischia (Italy), Sifnos (Greece), and Sydney (Australia) and then composite weavings of memories and source images resulting in the surreal and atmospheric compositions. This body of work continues O’Doherty’s dialogue with motif subjects such as empty suburban pools, noir inspired dining spaces and domestic rooms all realised in her continually refining visual language.
O’Doherty is a former recipient of the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, as well as being a finalist in the Wynne Prize, the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, Mosman Art Prize and received a high commendation in the Pro Hart Outback Prize. She has been featured in numerous publications including Artist Profile, the Art Gallery of NSW magazine Look and Grass Fires Magazine. Technicolour Haze is Lucy O’Doherty’s fourth solo exhibition with China Heights