We've been living in France for 8 years now. When we left London we had a party and I made invites. 'It's not an invasion, it's a liberation' they declared. The drawing was loose, quick, unplanned. The photo faces were made in the 'photo booth' of my local Tube station. But I'd been drawing infantile war for a while... this was a picture I made in 1999 of imagined Normandy beach action - its post 'Private Ryan'.
Sand castles and invasion beaches, seaside photo booths and toys soldiers, childrens book style pictures and the memories of veterans.
When I draw war its without direct experience but I've been occupied by its mythology from my earliest childhood. It's the scenario for my daydreams.
In 1998 I entered a picture in an 'Open' exhibition of pictures in Hammersmith, London. It was called 'Happy Soldiers and Sad Soldiers... I've never been to War'. Beautifully attired French Hussars clashed with British Infantry, the Napoleonic detail accurate except the French wear Nike Cyrus running shoes and the British wear Adidas shell toes - classic costume (The pic above was cobbled together, the large originals are with friends). I made two copies of my ink and marker drawing, one was a mirror image, and I joined them to make a long panarama style picture. None of the soldiers in the original picture had mouths. On one of the copies I gave all the soldiers smiles and on the other anti-smiles(?)... I'm not sure what else to call a down turned mouth.
The other day I came across the work of Todd Tremeer. He's a painter who makes lucid 'televisual' watercolours. He's painted the military models in museums, I don't think he's yet drawn any of the models on sale in their shops... and check out his 'Artist's Statement'.
Last weekend I presented the Battle of Walkerloo in a small town called Miélan where a Napoleonic bivouac had been organised, alas it was a little quiet. I deployed YouWalkerloo in a new way. As well as the toy soldier battle, using my camera and a portable photo printer I offered to take people's photo inside my paintings, I mounted the printed photo in a 'frame card' which included a brief explanation of the paintings and the Battle Of Walkerloo. The framed picture cost €5.
This was the first time I'd presented 'Walkerloo' to a French audience in France. Most people read 'Waterloo' on seeing it... sometimes they were a little hostile to an object which seemed to celebrate a national defeat. I explained my creation was the battle of Walkerloo which is not a French defeat but a series of pictures which as a game could in fact be 'played' as a French victory... hmmmm. I'm British and conversely the word Waterloo has some immediate self congratulatory nationalistic emotions attached... as for 'Walkerloo' it's a work in progress and can make me feel very proud, defensive, worried and excited. What does it do for you?
YouWalkerloo2 involes two people partaking in three characters. One is an Ensign holding the Colours, another a stout infantryman and another a recently decapitated bugler. I created the composition after reading about an incident said to have happened at the battle of Waterloo. I've since found a memoire in which it was described -
“...we halted and formed square in the middle of the plain. As we were performing this movement, a bugler of the 51st, who had been out with skirmishers, and had mistaken our square for his own, exclaimed, ‘Here I am again, safe enough...’ The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when a round shot took off his head and spattered the whole battalion with his brains, the colours and the. ensigns in charge of them coming in for an extra share. One of them, Charles Fraser, a fine gentleman in speech and manner, raised a laugh by drawling out, “How extremely disgusting!...”
An extract from 'Fifty Years Of My Life' George Thomas Keppel, Earl of Ablemarle 1799-1891 Ch.7 p.128 'A Narrow Escape'
I tell the story of the painting before I take the photos and try to express something of the excitement, glee, tragedy, horror, disgust, comedy and history that went into the creation of the paintings. We tend to smile when posing for photographs... 'say cheese...' and I also hope people will be happy with the purchase of their picture because I charge them €5. Thanks to anyone who takes part!
I have created 180,000 soldiers. I pretended to be them, painted them, presented them to bankers and financiers, had them manufactured and now I sell them. I modeled for them all. I did it at home with a garden fork for a musket and a dustbin for a horse. CHARRRRGE!
Only a fraction of the soldiers are thus far committed to the action. But these have already spread throughout the world: Britain, the United States, Australia, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Morocco and a surprising quantity in Northern Italy... this is confirmed through receipts of sale. I don't know how many free soldiers have been downloaded and made up by hand from http://www.walkerloo.com/ but by analysing my google data I'm fairly certain they've got to Russia, South America and China... If you have any intelligence regarding their adventures, especially pictures, send it forth! It'll be a battle report, you'd be a Walkerloo war correspondent... hmmm.... I think there is precedent for this in the blog-oz-phere...?
Yesterday I pieced together the first of a new type of soldier that I've been working on over the last few weeks. Painting big felt nice. Painting felt nice. I've done hardly any lately. In the next two months I'm going to paint more. More soldiers!
It was going to be called 'You Walkerloo' but now I'm not sure. Apparently it's a 'photo-booth', I've found out that's what this type of object was called back in the day. I've always wanted to make one... and now I can think of painting nothing other...
note. the other week whilst in London i checked out the Van Dyck exhibition at the Tate ... i was gagging to take close up photos of his pictures, he had so perfected the technology for painting fancy cloth... his marks and layers were so economic in constructing the illusion of light flashing over satin, velvet, highlights on fur, shadows in folds and creases... i reckon he could knock out the cloths impressively and quickly freeing him to concentrate the majority of his man hours on the faces and hands perhaps making up less than 5% of the total canvas area... smart! ... alas i asked the guard if i could take photos of his marks, obviously no flash, but it is forbidden, he was sorry and suggested i buy postcards or a catalogue blah blah... but the postcards are all of the picture as a whole, the paintings illusion intact... myth protected. its impossible to examine his efficient strokes and marks from this they only become apparent on close inspection,,,, GRRRRR seeing his paintings made me want to paint... not being able to come away with clues as to how he painted got me narked... hmmmm these thoughts snk in and inspirations fastened together lovely when i got home... hmmmm painting for photographs, hmmmm paintings without the time consuming fleshy bits... hmmmm
This first Walkerloo 'booth' is after, long after, a 'romantic' painting by Gerricault - you can see a photo of it here Its a portrait of a 'Lietenant Dieudonne' evidently an officer in the 'Chasseurs a Cheval de la Garde Imperiale'. The soldier certainly does look 'romantic'. I think my facination with soldiers is 'romantic'... or childish. The original painting hangs in the Louvre, I've not seen it, only pictures of it in books etc.
I painted this painting to be photofied... computerized... family albumicated... Oh... and you are meant to be a part of it as well.... how nice !?!
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