Willie Doherty's photograph depicts the historically contested landscape where the borders of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland meet. Springing from the Troubles, Doherty's work uses landscape to suggest a potentially disturbing incident has perhaps taken place within this conventionally beautiful setting. What looks at first to be stock imagery becomes suspect: a group of reeds and tall grasses at the roadside is silhouetted against a late sunset, while in the foreground is a set of tire tracks left by some unknown vehicle, suggesting a recent quick getaway for an undetermined purpose. The land is witness as well as stage, a site of incident and a bearer of meaning. The Outskirts evokes beauty and menace in a straightforward style that, despite its loaded subject matter, does not allow a simple interpretation of its source in civil strife.

Adapted from

• Charles Wylie, "Requisite Distance," in Willie Doherty: Requisite Distance, ed. Frances Bowles (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 32-37.

• Charles Wylie, DMA unpublished material, 1997.

• BBC History
  Learn more about The Troubles

• Irish History from the School of History and Anthropology, Queen's University Belfast
  Listen to podcasts "The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement"