Rescription: for our Love of War

I am sharing an exhibition with the photographer and book publisher Mark Cator, to be held at his photography studio in the top floor of Hendee House, an industrial building in Battery Road, in the industrial area on South Denes, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.  The exhibition is called Rescription: For Our Love of War.

Mark says "As artists we have both explored the relationship of war with the child  boy and the overall militarization of perceptions in society today."  My contribution has been selected from my War Diary sketchbooks and related work which I have been continuing since 1993 and most regularly since 2006.  This consists largely of studies undertaken in the evenings as a response to developments in conflict across the globe and in particular those that our government has participated in, in one way or another.  There is no consistent narrative to these studies: I just pick up my brush or pen and make a start, allowing and exploring whatever image emerges.  The drawings, watercolours and sculpture selected for this show relate to Mark's concerns.  The mythological Furies (or Avengers) aligned with military planes and the bully leader as war monger feature strongly.  There are also some works exploring the position of women as regards war.

The exhibition is open to the public for one day only, Sunday 8th July, 11am - 6pm.

Hell on Earth

The Dead are in Peace, it is the Survivors who live in Hell, watercolour, 2015

Patrick Cockburn reported on 23rd October in London Review of Books, 5 Nov 2015 issue:

"According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 250,124 Syrians have been killed and an estimated two million injured out of a population of 22 million.  The country is saturated by violence."

Today the parliament in London has voted to take military action in Syria.  Russia, France, USA, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Assad, the Kurds, Shia, Sunni, Israel, Palestine, etc etc etc., oil, coloniasm, arms sales, sadistic misogyny, greed, terror tactics, lies, evasions, propaganda - a different agenda for each party engaged, a whirlpool of confusion into which humanity is being hurled: for the civilians, blood and horror.

War Diary

I have been keeping a visual war diary for several years now, filling sketch books with watercolour or ink and wash drawings in response to the endlessly devastating news on television in the evenings.

It gets ever more impossible to respond in any way that remotely reflects the ruined lives of survivors from the increasing number of war zones, let alone the millions who have died.  But I feel I need to pay some sort of homage to the women and their families who have seen their homes and communities destroyed, and the injustice of modern warfare which brings so much suffering to non-combatants.

My homage does not pretend to express anything of the terrible reality on the ground, it can only be an outlet for my own grief at the indifferent brutality of man. My own soul wishes to flee from the horror of it all.  But there is nowhere to go: the world is a small place now and doesn't everything that happens on earth implicate us all everywhere?

There are more drawings on my website www.bridgetheriz.co.uk