Can art help us understand war?

With the unveiling of the Afghanistan galleries, we are finally able to showcase artists’ responses to this war. Some are famous, others anonymous, but all used the power of art to help us understand war.

Viewing art among historical objects, photographs and documents is very different from seeing it on the nice white walls of art galleries. The exhibition curators carefully selected every item to tell a complex story of a long war, one that forged connections across the globe. Art provides unique, often very personal, perspectives on this conflict and its consequences.

This sample of the works on display showcases over 20 years of commissioning and collecting art in response to the Australian experience of the war in Afghanistan.

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Peter Churcher, 2002

Some of the earliest are paintings by official war artist Peter Churcher. Appointed in January 2002, he deployed in February to witness the International Coalition Against Terrorism in the Middle East: with the RAAF at Diego Garcia; alongside the navy on the HMAS Kanimbla in the Persian Gulf; and then among the army at Bagram in August. 

Churcher was the first of the exceptional Australian artists deployed as official war artists to Afghanistan: Lyndell Brown and Charles Green (2007), Shaun Gladwell (2009) and Ben Quilty (2011). Since the First World War, the Memorial has commissioned official war artists to ‘record and interpret the Australian experience of war’; they are free to choose their subject matter.

Just as the nature of war has changed through history, so has art. Contemporary official war artists have created innovative works that give us eyewitness records, responses to the changing technology and geopolitical environment, and the long-lasting legacy of war for many service personnel. Deployed with the military, the official artists gain a perspective few civilians experience. To offer Memorial visitors a fuller picture of the conflict and its consequences, their works are shown alongside artists with different experiences and backgrounds.

Witnessing 9/11

One of the most unexpected works is the one that greets us at the entry: a large abstract painting in gorgeous blues, shapes of amphorae and fans scattered across the surface, blending into stripes at the centre. Beautiful, but with no obvious connection to war until we understand the story of its creation.

Australian artist Denise Green was hard at work in her New York studio on the morning of 11 September 2001. She had developed a recognisable style since the 1970s, with paintings that combined abstraction with symbolic figurative elements. Witnessing 9/11 from her studio window changed her life in ways she could not have predicted. The first was a rupture in her practice: the stripes dissecting her usual washes of colour. The stripes refer to the panelling of the Twin Towers she had just seen destroyed. Over the years since then, she has realised how the ‘stripes’ motif resonated with other traumatic memories from her life, including during her childhood in the wake of the Second World War.

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As part of a display about the War on Terror, the painting, accompanied with her words as an eyewitness to 9/11, offers insight into the complexity of the events that unfolded in response to that attack: impossible to predict, and profoundly shaping the lives of individuals and whole countries.

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, 2007

Official war artists Lyndell Brown and Charles Green met many ADF members during their deployment to Afghanistan in 2007, and deeply respected the “low-key idealism, caution, compassion and smartness of much of the Australian military, [and] their genuine sense of service.” They painted portraits of pilot Colonel Kevin Humphreys and gunner Corporal Richard "Scooter" Wakelin of 5th Aviation Regiment to express their gratitude for flying them around Afghanistan, which gave them a far deeper understanding of the place and Australia’s role in the conflict.

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Ben Quilty and Mark Noble, 2011

Official war artist Ben Quilty met Lance Corporal Mark Noble on deployment in Afghanistan. Noble first deployed aged 21 in February 2009 as an explosives detection dog handler and combat engineer with the Incident Response Regiment. Two days into his first patrol in the valleys of Uruzgan his sergeant, Brett Till, was killed by an IED.

After returning from Afghanistan, Noble sat for Lance Corporal M. Quilty invited soldiers to his studio to share their stories and sit for him: “I wanted [them] to be naked, showing not only physical strength but also the frailty of human skin and the darkness of the emotional weight of the war.”

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War rugs

Woollen rugs are an ancient practice in Afghanistan; their designs express the culture of their makers. Traditionally they are often made during winter by women at home. In response to the 1979 Soviet invasion, military iconography started to appear. This c.1980 example was made by the Baloch people in the west of Afghanistan. Among their customary stylised floral designs are woven tanks, armoured vehicles and grenades. The rugs became popular as souvenirs from the region, and then among collectors internationally – so they were made en masse in refugee camps in Pakistan. Rugs made in camps and homes have continued to respond to historical moments and changing technology.

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Khadim Ali, 2014

This monumental woven carpet has been revealed for the first time in the gallery. Hazara-Australian artist Khadim Ali established a weaving workshop in Kabul and is acclaimed for his adaptation of traditional rug making to express contemporary concerns. The Memorial commissioned him in 2014 to make a piece about the contemporary situation in Afghanistan; his work uses imagery from the 10th century Persian epic Shahnameh but instead of heroes fighting demons, both sides are demons.

Traditionally, lions were symbolic of a strong, proud nation, but here they are circus lions, kowtowing to international and fundamentalist influences. The calligraphy is a jumble of words and languages, reflecting the breakdown of traditional culture. The work expresses the lack of agency experienced by many Afghan groups, which often leads to further violence.

Ali’s Kabul studio created economic opportunities for Hazara weavers and to recognise their skills, which had become associated with mass production of rugs in refugee camps. After the studio was forced to close after the fall of Kabul, Ali supported many staff to find safety abroad, including in Australia.

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Women's voices, 2017-2018

‘Making Marks: Australia and Afghanistan’ was a 2017 arts exchange project between artists in Australia and women undertaking literacy and vocational classes at the Organisation of Promotion Afghan Women’s Capabilities (OPAWC) in Kabul.

Each work is created on a handkerchief that is a collaboration between two women, Australian artists who created an artwork that was sent to Kabul, where the Afghan women responded with embroidery, often adding words to express their hopes for the future. (Only first names are used for the Afghan artists to preserve their anonymity from the Taliban.)

Trooper Cooper, 2010-2011

Trooper Robert Cooper deployed as an ASLAV gunner with 2 Cavalry Regiment as part of MTF-2 (Mentoring Task Force – Rotation 2), based in Uruzgan Province in 2010–11. He meticulously documented his service; afterwards he created 346 watercolours depicting his experience of war, from before he left until he returned home. He donated the entire series to the Memorial, an invaluable record. In addition those exhibited, a digital display enables visitors to explore more.

His works include depictions of military action, but also what daily life was like in the military and in Afghanistan. The examples here show accommodation while on patrol – sharing a tent in Uruzgan – and the common sight of a ‘jingle truck’, the highly decorated trucks that travel throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, each an expression of their owner’s personality and background.

Kat Rae, 2021

After 20 years of service in the army, Afghanistan and Iraq, war veteran Kat Rae was studying to become an artist when the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report was released in 2020.

The 39 prints represent the Afghans who the report found were allegedly unlawfully killed by Australian Special Forces soldiers. Rae combined images of the redacted report and the Australian War Memorial, contrasting the alleged events with the high esteem in which many Australians hold military service, to express the challenge she believes the nation faces in response.

She felt the complexity of etching techniques reflected that situation, alternating between printing with the plate and then further exposing it to acid; each time the acid further ate away the metal plate, altering the next print.

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Natalie Duncan, 2018

Natalie Duncan deployed to Afghanistan as a combat photographer in 2009 – the first time she had left Australia. Here she  expresses the memories of a complex, overwhelming experience of war – each illustration on the ceramic surface an individual memory. Among them: “Watching the boys go outside the wire for days and knowing there’s a hundred ways an IED could be hidden beneath their feet”; “Getting rocketed, and sleeping through it”; “Wishing I didn’t have boobs as I put on my Kevlar”; “Freezing on Piquet”; “Being able to pick the ones on their third or more rotation”; “Little ones with half melted faces”; and “The only woman I saw, floating in a sea of blue material on the back of a motorbike”.

She created Memory Jug - Afghanistan for the Memorial's 2018 Napier Waller Art Prize, in which it was highly commended.