Vulnerability

In 2008 the artist travelled to Buna, Papua New Guinea, to research the battlefields of the Second World War. While there he joined an archaeological team searching for soldiers still missing from the war. He made a second field trip in 2009, and together these experiences had a profound effect on the artist professionally and personally. He subsequently created a body of work that explores the legacies of the battle for Buna on the landscape and those who fought there. He said of his experience, "To pick up a piece of shrapnel or a mess tin or a water bottle that was connected with an individual, that was a profound experience to be able to have that direct connection with the past." This work is part of a series of portraits that are much more symbolic, than representational. Here he tries to commemorate the unknown and unnamed soldiers at their most vulnerable, before death.