Willie Doherty (b.1959, Derry, Northern Ireland) continues to live and work in Derry.

His native landscape has been the focus of his work since his black-and-white photographs from the early 1980s. Doherty became known for his photographs overlaid with text, which dealt directly with the language of conflict as it relates to the representation of place. He continues to work in both video and photography as a means to investigate the changing political landscape of Northern Ireland and other countries with contested borders.

Doherty’s photography and video installations have been included in numerous international exhibitions such as “Cocido y Crudo” at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (1994); “1999 Carnegie International,” Pittsburgh; “XXV Bienal de São Paulo” (2002); the “Venice Biennale” (2007); “dOCUMENTA” (13), Kassel. He has been nominated twice for the Turner Prize; once in 1994 and again in 2003. In 2006, his work was the subject of a video survey exhibition organized by Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City and, in 2007, the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau in Münich and Kunstverein in Hamburg collaborated on an exhibition and catalogue, “Willie Doherty: Anthology of Time-Based Works.” In 2010, Doherty filmed for the first time outside of Ireland and this work, ‘SEGURA’ was shown at “Manifesta 8” in Murcia. In 2016, Villa Merkel in Esslingen exhibited several recent and new video works by Doherty. In 2018, Doherty participated in the inaugural edition of FRONT International, “An American City: Eleven Cultural Exercises,” in Cleveland Ohio.

In 2011, his work was the subject of one-person exhibition at Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane. “One Place Twice: Photo/Text/85/92,” Doherty’s exhibition of early black-and-white photographs was on view at Alexander and Bonin in 2012.  From 2013 – 2014 a major survey exhibition of Doherty’s video and photographic works “UNSEEN” was organized by the City Factory Gallery, Dublin and traveled to the Museum De Pont, Tilburg.  In 2015, CAM- Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon presented “Again and Again,” a major solo exhibition of Doherty’s video and photographic works. In 2017, The Mattress Factory in Pittsburg commissioned the artist to create a new video work, No Return, which was shot on location in Braddock, Pennsylvania.