Description

Unknown Soldier (Endless War) acrylic on canvas with newspaper clippings. I started this painting with pretty much exactly the image you see in mind.

In terms of technique, it’s a splash-and-drip painting, with the newspaper added after and then the white and black added in.

I painted it as a companion piece to Obverser (Endless War). Both paintings are different expressions of the same belief, that humans are inherently inhumane, and will always find a reason to go to war with each other. We are a violent and brutal species, war is our nature.

On the painting, there are some words written in newspaper clippings:

Bir sipariş var for more death (there is an order for more death)

Feed me hate and lies

TV’de bügün (on TV today)

Endless war

I die

Doomed youth

I am just a kid

War hero

In terms of the meaning or message, I think that’s pretty clear and doesn’t require explanation. However the line ‘Doomed Youth’ is a reference to Anthem for Doomed Youth the poem by Wilfred Owen, which I post below.

Anthem for Doomed Youth
BY WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.