Psycho, Heidelberg Military Hospital

In September 1942, 27-year-old Private Albert Tucker was admitted to 115 Australian General Hospital at Heidelberg in Melbourne for observation after a slight illness. It was from his hospital bed that he caught a glimpse of the tortured face that he later drew, and titled 'Psycho, Heidelberg military hospital'. With the speed of a camera shutter, Tucker's subliminal memory fused what he saw into this haunting image, seen only for a moment before the patient was led away to the psychiatric ward for treatment. In 'Psycho' we see deeply etched lines that cut across the brow like painful bolts of electricity, the eyes are huge and staring, but unseeing, and the mouth is a despairing slash cutting between the jagged shadows of the cheekbones and the chin. This drawing is a symbolic statement about the nightmare of war, and the stealth with which turmoil and alienation works on the human psyche. Tucker uses dark carbon pencil to 'carve out' the contour of the face, and tints of colour to heighten its expressive force: blue on the eyes to make them stand out even more alarmingly, and white to accentuate the contrasts between light and dark. The young man's face becomes that of a zombie, a death's head.