Politically powerful artists chosen to portray complex war
[ Research Review 0307 : ]
By Silvia Dropulich
When artists Charles Green and Dr Lyndell Brown were approached by the Australian War Memorial (AWM) to go to Iraq and Afghanistan as war artists, the pair’s initial response was an adamant “no way!”.
“We thought it was too apocalyptic a prospect,” says Charles Green, an Associate Professor and Head of the Art History program in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.
“But then, the AWM was prepared to give us complete artistic freedom, and we then thought, ‘Well, how do you get to access to where history is unfolding?’ And we decided the best avenue was through a project like this,” he said.
“Here [Iraq and Afghanistan] we have an extraordinary intersection of history, politics and art in the making.”
Associate Professor Green and Dr Brown intend to produce a large group of highly detailed, 12 inch by12 inch, paintings and a few much larger paintings depicting their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The paintings, though still to be completed, are informed and inspired by their previous works such as Ghost Story, 2006, which appears on the cover of this magazine. Ghost Story was produced directly prior to Associate Professor Green and Dr Brown’s appointment as official war artists and is an example of what viewers can expect with the Iraq/Afghanistan war paintings.
“Ghost Story illustrates the cross-cultural and political nature of our work,” Associate Professor Green said. “The overall effect is of a series of interlocking and penetrating gazes looking out of the picture, which is the reverse of the normal idea of looking into a painting.”
It is the confrontation of viewer and voyeur, which makes Green and Brown’s work politically powerful as it undermines the traditional power exchanges between the gaze and the object.
Associate Professor Green and Dr Brown spent five weeks travelling through Iraq and Afghanistan, facilitated by the Australian Defence Force and accompanied by Official Photographer, Sean Hobbs. The artists were hosted by Army, Navy, RAAF and other Australian military personnel at posts in Bahrain, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We felt tragedy unfolding in a very vast way while we were there,” Associate Professor Green said. “But we were very impressed and surprised by the compassion and idealism of the Australian military – we lived with them – and found them highly trained and deeply professional.”
The AWM told Research Review that what they were looking for with this commission were artists who were responsive to their environment, and who could interpret the complicated and varied nature of contemporary military operations seen in the Middle East and Afghanistan, in a sincere yet sophisticated way.
“Lyndell Brown and Charles Green stood out as artists that could develop dynamic pictures that would relay this complexity,” the AWM said.
“Charles and Lyndell certainly have artistic freedom, but their brief is to document and interpret the operations of the ADF and to focus upon the personalities, technology and landscapes they experience while on tour.
“In other words, their brief is to develop a total aesthetic experience of a particular conflict.” The role of the official artist was not one of providing political commentary, but to produce visual documents that are highly complex, and truly reflect the everyday experience of the military conflict they witness.
“At the same time the Memorial understands that war zones are highly charged and that it is likely some works created within the Memorial’s official artist scheme will be confronting,” the AWM said.
Green and Brown’s work will be exhibited at the Australian War Memorial alongside the works of other renowned Australian Official Artists. The project will be officially launched in June of this year by the AWM, which will showcase and announce the first outcomes, with a comprehensive exhibition of Brown and Green’s work to follow in approximately 12 months’ time.
The appointment of official artists was reintroduced in 1999 after a gap of 30 years. Subsequently Rick Amor, Wendy Sharpe, Peter Churcher and Lewis Miller were appointed. They are part of a tradition of official war artist appointments that commenced with the First World War and included Arthur Streeton, George Lambert and Will Dyson.
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