Rural destruction

This work was painted in the studio after Rick Amor returned from East Timor, and now includes a late revision to the work. By eliminating a larger figure in the foreground, the work is designed to lead the eye into the landscape with the purpose of creating a certain mood. The first oddity of 'Rural destruction' is in its colour. A landscape of ashes under grey, unsettled skies sets a tone of jarring coldness in what should be a warm place. The trees retain no tree like qualities, other than forming irregular gashes in the landscape, perpendicular to the horizon. The dominating human presence, Australians from the 108th Field Battery, do not belong here. Their camouflage serves only to startle, to draw attention to the presence it should be hiding. Indeed the sense that much life perished here is evoked in this vision of the aftermath of the massacres that brought the troops in their wake. Amor's landscapes are 'haunted rather than peopled'. Here everyone faces away, each figure is alone and there is no contact between them as they too confront the landscape, the devastation of which is clearly a parallel for the destruction of human life. The desolate resounding damage to the human spirit, that was so wrenching for Australians, is an aspect of the East Timorese struggle that would have played a significant part in the intervention of the peacekeeping forces.