Terrestrial by Declan O'Doherty
Interested by the fact that the desert covers the majority of the Australian landscape and presents some of the most inhospitable places on earth, curiosity drove Declan O’Doherty to the Simpson Desert in 2003 in hope of discovering more – he was not disappointed.
This journey was the beginning of a long fascination driven by the beauty, colour and natural transitions of the desert landscape and Terrestrial is a culmination of O’Doherty’s exploration into the desert environment using memory as the primary tool to capture a strikingly dynamic, emotive response to the Australian landscape.
Whilst focusing on stark, inhospitable desert expanses O’Doherty’s extreme pallet works in direct opposition to the relationship between colour and the natural world. His tonal vocabulary uses colour to evoke feelings of isolation and alienation within the vastness whilst line directs the compositions, deconstructing hills, canyons and monolithic land masses into motifs paralleling a sense of sanctuary within the void.
Terrestrial officially opened last Saturday December 1 and is Declan O’Doherty’s first exhibition with Aeon Arts. An emerging artist O’Doherty left National Art School in 2009 majoring in painting and drawing and has exhibited at Mils Gallery in 2010 and 2011.
Syndicate Gallery
2 Danks Street, Waterloo
Until December 16, 2012
Presented by Aeon Arts
Eclipse, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 70cm
Ranges, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 45 x 106cm
Courtesy the artist and Aeon Arts
Nike Savvas: Purple Haze presents intimate screen prints and immersive large-scale installation and video work by Savvas from 2005–2026, each evocative of different places and...
Although physically he is of modest stature, Zofrea has devoted much of his life to grand projects that have been conceived and executed on a...
Through a multidisciplinary collaboration between Rotterdam-based curators, architect Paul Cournet of CLOUD and artist-designer Sabine Marcelis of Studio Sabine Marcelis, the exhibition explores the interplay...
Artificial intelligence will be used by young artists who started using it as kids on their phones. They will see it as a natural extension...
This year’s Biennale arrives under more complex circumstances than most. It is shaped by the profound loss of its curator, Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025), whose exhibition...
No artist creates in isolation. Every painting carries traces of the conversations, places and histories that shaped it, preserving within its surface a particular moment...
The weekend markets at Fairfield Showground have been one of Western Sydney’s great institutions for more than fifty years. Fresh fruit and vegetables, children’s clothes,...
In recent times, Yorgos Lanthimos has shifted toward photography, noting in a Guardian interview, 2026, that he needs respite, saying, “it might be a couple...
In Australia, political cartoons were altered by several events during the 1960s: the arrival of Les Tanner’s (1927‒2001) instinctual wit at The Bulletin, Bruce Petty’s...