The Naked Silo

This blog post compiles all the links to all 100 paintings of my big World War One art project I called To the Sound of Trumpets . I've set this up in sections according to how the exhibition was arranged at Macaulay Museum in November 2014. We begin with the Archduke Franz Ferdinad and his assassin, Gavrilo Princip: Catalysts for Calamity Dance Partners 1 Dance Partners 2 through 5 Dance Partners 6 through 9 To the Sound of Trumpets Entrenched Over the Top And the Women Went Also R&R Nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus Snow March Dance Masks Gas Attack Nunc est bibendum Troubles on Top of Troubles This Silent Countryside Captured! Wounded More Wounded "Send More Men" Buried Bang Bang Toys War Progression Effective Range: 50 Yards Children of Mars Across This Antheap The Kindest Cut The Empty Schoolhouse Flamethrower! Writing Between the Fi...

To the sound of voice and piano. During the exhibition of my World War One painting project (11-30 November 2014) I had a selection of music playing in the venue ( Macaulay Church Museum in Picton, ON) to convey an overall sense of melancholy –not sadness– while visitors looked at the paintings. Among the songs was one called "So" by my friend, writer and musician  Gayleen Froese , which always makes me think of a snowy winter's day whenever I hear it –and we did get some snow during the exhibition. The mood of it was perfect for my show and I was very happy when she said I could use it for a video showing all of the paintings in their proper display order, starting with the Archduke Ferdinand and his assassin, and ending with the Remembrance section. This video lasting 3 minutes and 45 seconds represents almost ten months of work, from the first documentary watched to the last brush stroke applied (not to mention the 8 hours spent hanging the show the day be...

12" x 16", oil on wood panel, 2014 There is an age-old tradition of presenting St. Sebastian as a symbol of the artist himself, suffering the pangs of artistic creation; the execution of the saint is a homonym for the execution of the work of art and the death of the saint symbolizes its completion. Ever since the early Renaissance Sebastian's arrows have symbolized the painter's brushes, pointing inwards, penetrating him, conveying the idea that "every painter paints himself."  Egon Schiele 's Self Portrait as St. Sebastian from 1914-15 (the very obvious basis for my painting here) fits perfectly within my World War One painting project , having been painted around the outset of WWI. Putting myself into the painting symbolizes the completion of my 100-piece project and serves as yet another memento mori: the inscription making reference to the fact that, even in Arcadia (i.e. the safety of my studio) one day I, too, will die.

14" x 11", oil on wood panel, 2014 Much of my WWI painting project conveys an over all theme and this painting's sentiment was essentially my conclusion about war in general, the words in the piece specifically inspired by " Us and Them " by Pink Floyd  (and also a little bit by " Where Are We Now? " by David Bowie ). This angry skull really wants conflict in perpetuity, but we can deny it through empathy for our fellow humans.

17" x 14" (x24), ink on Bristol board, 2014 On 18 October 2014 at 8pm I started a 24-hour mini-marathon, painting ink portraits of 24 soldiers from Prince Edward County who were killed in World War One as part of my 100-painting project, To the Sound of Trumpets . My initial intent for the show was to do a 100-hour marathon and paint 100 portraits of local soldiers and then do a small number of larger oil paintings to coincide with the exhibitions of the five PEC museums. To get a list of potential subjects I went to the cenotaph in Picton and copied down all the names: One of four sides listing the names. There were over 150 names from all over PEC, listed by area, but I could only find viable photos (good enough for me to create a good likeness) of about 30. Obviously, I had to scale back the marathon and rethink the whole project. I decided I still wanted to do 100 paintings total so I relegated the marathon to only 24 hours (and 24 portrait paintings) and I ...

11" x 17", ink (and digital) on paper (mounted), 2007/14 This piece was originally presented as an eight-page "story" in a comic book I made in 2007. Although I only ever finished one issue, I had material (sketches, story ideas, etc.) for three more. In that issue this was called "The Boys Wanna Fight" (after a song by Garbage ) but after rearranging the pages to become panels, I borrowed a title from an XTC song instead. Since I was making the same overall point with my World War One painting project , I felt it appropriate to include it in this rearranged fashion, focusing on the WWI page. The cover of the one and only completed issue.

16" x 20", oil on wood panel, 2014 Too gruesome to recount, you can read this synopsis of chemical warfare to get an idea of just how horrific this new weapon was. This excerpt from Wilfred Owen 's " Dulce et Decorum est " (which I had excerpted the ending for use in the exhibition of my World War One painting project ) conveys the nastiness better than my painting: Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime ... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. And here's an interesting story about Fritz Haber, and the incredibly ironic path that led to the chemical warfare of WWI.