Holy Night (PB Anar Juy)

Depicts a night scene where Australian sentry and parts of the patrol base were silhouetted by an American fired artillery illumination round from Camp Hadrian. There was a wooden cross, left by the French or Dutch, on top of the bunker. The silhouette of the cross in the flare created an unintended religious connotation. As the artist noted; ' At night, the Americans would sometimes fire artillery illumination rounds from Hadrian to harass suspected Taliban movements in the adjacent river valleys. An artillery fired illumination round is a huge flare attached to a parachute and designed to burn for a couple of minutes several hundred metres above the ground as it slowly descends. The cross on the sandbagged roof was likely put there by the French to support a satellite dish or some other antenna. At night and in the glow of a flare, it did cause one to reflect on its religious symbolism'. Stephen Delaney (1954-) is a Canadian Army Reservist and his regiment is the Governor General's Foot Guards in Ottawa. He has completed two tours of Afghanistan; in 2006 and 2010. Delaney has also trained as an artist at the Ottowa School of Art and Emily Carr University in Canada.