Digital print on canvas. 100x80cm. £375. In 2014 I was invited by Bank Street Gallery, Kirriemuir, to produce a painting for a group exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War. "The Pals" is what I came up with. How does one portray such a tragic and dreadful event in an artwork ? I wanted my image to have gravitas without being mawkish. Also, I felt that my picture should not allow purely artistic concerns to predominate.
The content of "The Pals" is two figures running across a desolate landscape; the sun peers through a dense pall of smoke which reduces the scene to an almost featureless monochrome. The figures are blurred silhouettes and yet we can sense that they are soldiers - and sense their eventual fate. The less I explicitly delineated in this painting, the more powerful it became.

Date: 14/08/2014

Location: Somewhere on The Western Front.