Work by Fraser Dougherty Photo by M.W. Weiss

Art Commentary With Marion Wolberg Weiss

Fraser Dougherty At LTV: Catching Sight Of The World

There's something barren yet exhilarating about entering Long Island Television studios on Industrial Road in Wainscott. While situated in the middle of no-man's land, LTV has brought us the world. And so has its leader and visionary, Fraser Dougherty.

Mr. Dougherty's recent exhibition of silk screen prints covered several decades, subjects, intentions and passions as it also covered the TV studio's walls in addition to a stage set used by the John Drew Theatre, a makeshift room and a 100-foot canvas stretched across the space like a panorama.

Regardless of diverse times, places or subject matter, Mr. Dougherty's works are both documentary in their historical/geographical documentation and Expressionism. Such a combination becomes an eloquent evocation of specific experiences as well as archetypical/iconic imagery.

For example, there's Mr. Dougherty's montage from the Selma, Alabama March in the 1960s, with portraits featuring Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer and James Balwin, both a recording of a salient event and an expression of a deeply-felt political passion.

Landscapes of nature abound, too, their purpose to express America's beauty: prints of the Grand Canyon, blazing forth with stunning Southwest colors; island inlets; rock formations; majestic waterfalls.

Landscapes of another kind are also represented, this time aerial shots showing plowed fields taken after World War 11 by Mr. Dougherty himself. While such photographs were not considered "art" at the time, the works have become gems during the subsequent years, examples of Abstract Expressionism that could stand alongside more well-known examples with pride.

The contoured fields, with their strips of horizontal or vertical color, give credence to Mr. Dougherty's color sense (especially orange, yellows and greens) and striking composition, two formal elements which characterize his work.

The aerial perspective is an added aesthetic aspect, imbuing the images with a mythic atmosphere. There's a particular piece that recalls, for this critic, skyscrapers, looming forms reaching for the heavens, transforming technology for a spirtual good.

Speaking of myths, Mr. Dougherty's "panorama" celebrates the various typography found in the Greek Islands. Created in the early1980s, the images seem as fresh as ever and as universal, too. Like most of Mr. Dougherty's works, this series serves various intentions: evoking personal experiences, telling a story, documenting Greece's beauty.

Yes, these images do it all, with pinache and passion.

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