Changing Ideas Award
Agricultural landscape has been a common subject matter, portrayed by oil painters for centuries. It’s something I have often enjoyed painting myself in the past, sitting in the countryside with my canvas, easel and lunch on a nice day. In Ukraine, especially in the south and east, the Russian Federation considers agriculture, farming equipment and the farmers themselves a legitimate, daily target. This landscape painting titled “drone” is based on a Russian attack of a Ukrainian farmer’s field of wheat, intentionally setting it on fire at harvest time. Destroying crops and killing farmers in their fields is established Russian military strategy, and a war crime under international law.
I wanted to evoke or reference the feeling of plein air painting - a gentle activity; using natural linen, similar in format to a 19th century French 'size 30’ canvas, like the landscape paintings of the Impressionists, which inspired me in the early days of my career. Contrasted here with the daily horror of farming the present day Ukrainian landscape. Beautiful countryside and cynical destruction share the same space. The paint is loosely applied, with vivid colour in impasto, as though painted outdoors from life. Instead, the image is based on a video taken by a Ukrainian farmer on his phone. The crop is being consumed in a fire which is now out of control in the dry weather. Above the field in the smoke is a tiny drone which may be responsible for the fire or may just be the invaders observing their offence, unsatisfied and searching for new victims in a landscape they consider their vassal. - the artist