The Naked Silo

20" x 16", oil on panel, 2016, private collection This painting is a commission I recently completed of Sid Atkinson, who was a tail gunner in World War Two. He survived 30 missions but then died after the war of a heart attack at age 44 (my present age). When his granddaughter asked me to do this and sent me a photo, I knew it would be fun to paint because it had a bit of mystery to it (probably taken before a mission, standing beside his plane in the early morning mist –at least, that's the story I used in my head while painting this!). It was a black and white photo, naturally, and I wanted to only slightly colourize it, maintaining a limited palette while still creating a foreboding-yet-respectful mood. The commissioner and I are both quite happy with it. Sid in pencil stage.

War Progression #1–4 After finding a great photo of a soldier walking down a road, completely loaded with gear, my brain started developing a loose narrative for him and his experience during the war. When I say "my brain" I'm referring to my subconscious collating a lot of the research I'd been ingesting and presenting me with ideas I still don't have a complete understanding of. Is this one soldier's progression during the war? Is it a physical or psychological progression? Both? Does it represent soldiers in a broader sense? Is it the progression of the war itself? All wars? Is it my own psychological progress while spending nine months on this WWI painting project ? These paintings could represent all of those, and any "interpretations" I offer would only be retroactive; as much as I "planned" the compositions, colours, and techniques used in them, they weren't as consciously planned out, metaphorically or symbolically, as,...

20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2014 Many of the paintings from To the Sound of Trumpets , my WWI-inspired art project, work better when viewed with the rest of the pieces than when taken out of context. By itself, this (and others) may seem a little heavy-handed, but I think it's a key piece in the Remembrance section. The main inspiration for this painting came from a scene in Alejandro Jodorowsky's extremely surreal Holy Mountain where little, blue birds flew out of a small hole in the chest of a man who was recently killed. After seeing image after image of peace doves and hands holding doves, I subverted a painting by Nancy Howe and added the visceral connection to the soldier to indicate that peace may be the goal, an ideal, but it comes at a price. The working title for this was Peace Extraction , but I opted for the longer, Star-Trek-third-season-era-like title because it's a little more narrative, but I still like Peace Extraction .

16" x 20", oil on wood panel, 2014 Considering the subject matter, my  100-painting project inspired by the beginning of World War One doesn't have very many paintings with blood in them. In fact, blood appears in only 5% or the paintings in an obvious manner (but may appear in a few of the monochromatic ones and also blood may be inferred in a couple others). My intent was to limit the usage and make the red so... red and explicit...to make the impact of it stronger and more visceral. I've used song lyrics (from trench songs and modern pop songs) as inspiration/titles/etc. in many of my paintings (from this project and elsewhere), but the title of this one came to me subconsciously. "The kindest cut" is a fairly common phrase, but, sure enough, my brain picked it up from "All of My Heart"  by ABC, which sounds sweet and romantic, musically, but is in fact quite bitter and desperate, lyrically. Appropriate.

20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2014 Trench songs feature in a few pieces in my World War One painting project , but they're most prominent in this one and in "Why Are We Here?" , having some of the words scratched into the paint. I could have found image reference of an actual soldier tangled in barbed wire for this, but I decided to look through my photos from my trip to Italy last March, knowing there I'd taken a shot or two of Michelangelo's  Pietà . My idea was to extract Jesus from Mary's embrace and string him up in barbed wire for my Remembrance section, emphasizing the theme of sacrifice. My sketch of the figure in my notebook looked wobbly and rough, but nice and alive and reminded me of Egon Schiele 's drawing style, so I then chose to emulate his style for the figure in the final piece.

17" x 14", ink and acrylic, 2005 This is another of my mother's brothers –although, my aunt Magda claims it's Alekso , not Jovan. Confusing? Don't even get me started on the explanation of why the brothers have different last names...). They both live in Australia.

17" x 14", ink and acrylic, 2005 This is my uncle (my mom's brother), Alekso, who lives in Australia. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by the black and white photos of my uncles (and my dad) in military uniform...something about mandatory service in the Yugoslav army (I still haven't inquired too deeply about it). I met him and the rest of my Australian family when I visited there with my sister in 1993. It was quite amazing to see so many familiar faces that I'd gotten to know through photos only. Like in the two paintings of my dad ( here  and  here ), the red is acrylic, the rest is ink.

More from sketchbook #25.

More from sketchbook #24. Growing up in the 1970s we had lots of great cartoons to watch, mostly on Saturday mornings. Sure, the animation (and drawing...and storytelling) in the American shows was kind of lame in most cases, but we were kids and didn't know any better. But then there were the Japanese cartoons: Star Blazers , Grandizer, Gaiking, Spaceketeers, Starvengers, Danguard Ace , and, pictured above, Battle of the Planets . Most of the English translations were pedestrian and sanitized for North American consumption, but we loved what we got. BotP was my favourite and was my first exposure to what I would much later learn was referred to as animé. Many early elementary school recesses consisted of us kids recreating the adventures of G-Force in the schoolyard. Oh, yes. Above (left to right) is Princess, Mark, and the amazingly-designed Phoenix. It wasn't until the mid-to-late 90s that I learned that the show was originally called Gatchaman in Japan and had a ...