I’ve been taking a look at the highlights of 2024 and wish to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported me in every way. I couldn’t have done this without you.

The year began well with my image, ‘Guarded Affection’ getting selected for the Arts to Hearts Magazine’s Floral Edition. This was followed later in February with the notification from Cavan Arts Office that I was being awarded the Professional Artist’s Award which has been a blessing as it’s allowed me to not just buy materials but to experiment with materials I hadn’t previously used; learn new skills and progress my practice.

From April – June 2024 Willie Doherty’s exhibition, ‘Remnant’ which investigates the interconnectedness of place, time, and memory opened in Solstice Arts Centre, Navan in the third floor gallery. At the same time my MFA work, A Joining of Self was exhibited in the Café Gallery. The exhibition received a mention by Niall MacMonagle in his Two to View section of the Sunday Independent and at the end of May an In Conversation event was held between author Emilie Pine and myself which informally explored memory and the artistic and personal processes that led to this work.

June 1st saw one of the images from my Forsaken Ireland series selected for an online exhibition under the theme ‘Abandoned’ by The Chateau Gallery and towards the end of June I showed some new work in Humilis, a group exhibition with fellow Reverve Artist Collective members during the Hinterland Festival in Kells, Meath.

This was followed by a quick trip to London to take part in a Mordençage Workshop with the creative and knowledgeable Magda Kuca. It was a wonderful introduction to the process which I hope to find time and space to practice during 2025. While I was in London I took in the Zanele Muholi exhibition in the Tate Modern which blew me away. This workshop was funded by the Award I received from Cavan Arts earlier in the year.

Also funded was a week’s residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Monaghan. This was the first time I’d ever had a full week to myself for my practice. It was kind of overwhelming at first but I soon settled in and met a variety of amazing artists from diverse disciplines. I look forward to returning to the Centre in the not too distant future.

August saw a dream come true for me. A Joining of Self was published in Source Photographic Review Issue #115, ‘Wounds’. The images were accompanied by an inspired piece of writing by Jennifer Good who wrote: ‘A careful layering of material symbols as light and quiet as the stillest still life, yet woven so tight as to become devastating, the meaning of the work emerges slowly. It confronts us with the fact of abuse and its silencing in places like this one everywhere, every day. The most unsettling of the work’s many symbolic layers, is that the camera she uses is his. It is his twin lens reflex camera: his gaze, also reclaimed. Not-quite twin gazes in a not-quite twin house, inhabited by not-quite the same person, looking at the past and the present at the same time . . . ’
Copies of this issue are available via the link above.

Also in August PhotoIreland’s TLP Editions selected my work for publication as a zine in their TLP Editions zine series. This is available to purchase from The Library Project in Temple Bar or online. I’ve been buying these zines by other photographers for years and am only too delighted to now be included on the list.

Between August and October three images were selected for three different exhibitions organised by Shutter Hub, a UK organisation providing opportunities and support for creative photographers worldwide. The first image to be selected was ‘No One Will Believe You’ for the Shutter Hub Yearbook 2024. Next was ‘Letting Go’ for their Return to the Sea exhibition which is currently on show on the seafront in Worthing, UK and finally, in October, ‘This Is Real Love’ was included in the Your Lens, Your Truth exhibition which ran in conjunction with the Sainsbury Centre in response to their installation, The Camera Never Lies: Challenging images through The Incite Project.

In November, three new images were selected for the annual ‘Surveyor’ exhibition in Solstice Arts Centre which is an Open Call to artists from/based in County Meath. To finish off the year two of these same images were published in Arts to Hearts Magazine, Art & Emotions edition which has been an absolute thrill.

All in all, it’s been an amazing year art wise. Here’s to a happy, healthy, creative and prosperous 2025.