samples from domestic lives

 Black Iron, 2008

, Message, 2008

 White Iron, 2008

Assemblages (above, from left): Mangled (detail); Buffing, Sugar Fax (detail).

from Queen of the House

"These works have a naïve directness to them. The benign expressions on the dolls’ faces are in sharp contrast to the tasks they are undertaking, imparting to them some of the quality of the housewives in the film, Stepford Wives. This makes the story they are portraying all the stronger, allowing the viewer to empathise with the artist’s concern to show women captured by domesticity, trying to balance their lives between the dual calls of domesticity and work as they fight the terrorism of time (Arlie Hochschild’s ‘Second Shift’).

Susan O’Doherty says of her work that she likes to create something from nothing, exploring how objects might be placed together to tell a tale. In assembling the cast of characters and objects she has collected, she creates a strong story, using her unusual assemblages to call attention to the role women have played and continue to play in households, making it clear that, as yet, it is a role that the majority of us have not shed.

These artworks present a refreshing, unique and singular vision of domestic life in the 19th and 20th centuries, which will resonate with many people"

Joanna Capon