Twist of fate | Cassino Exhibition May 2010

A rare opportunity
A rare opportunity has come my way. An invitation to take part in an exhibition of New Zealand artists in Cassino from 15 to 29 May 2010.

The theme is Peace and Remembrance.


What this means for me
The pressure is now on for me to come up with my first painting in this body of artwork.

If am unable to raise the money to attend the exhibition, and therefore freight the painting/s my guess is that I’ll need to have them completed mid-April.

There is nothing like a deadline to inspire action.

What I plan to do
There is no value in doing the artistic equivalent of sending ‘coals to Newcastle’. Italians will not go to an exhibition of New Zealand artists to see paintings of war graves and fallen buildings, surely? I want to send them something they may not have seen; New Zealand. But it needs to link to the purpose of the show.

Twist of fate, an unpredicted or random occurrence with far-reaching consequences

At this early juncture one idea is taking shape; two photographs, one sitting on top of the other. One is a creased and faded black and white photo of Mac and comrades resting amongst the rubble of Cassino in 1944. The other is a vivid colour photo of a family group on the beach at Whangamata taken January 2010. It’s a photo I took and it includes Mac’s widow, his daughter, two granddaughters and two great granddaughters.

The Battle of Cassino may not have been an unpredicted or a random occurrence, but on the ground, whether or not one person survived could come down to a twist of fate.

I cannot know what Mac experienced in Cassino in 1943/44. But I do know many people are grateful that he survived. If he hadn’t, that second photo and five of the people in it would not exist. One is my wife, another is my daughter. The same story will be true for incalculable numbers of people across the globe; it’s a universal story, 65 years passed and three new generations born.

Equally it’s important to consider the lives fate did not spare. War doesn’t just kill the people there and then, it destroys unnumbered futures. The consequences are far-reaching indeed.