George Gittoes
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George Gittoes is an Australian war artist who uses painting, drawing, photographs and video. He has focused on traveling to places which have been affected greatly by human tragedy either because of war or natural disaster. Sometimes the Australian government has employed him as a war artist to travel with troops or peacekeepers.
Gittoes' painting Self Portrait in Somalia was hung in the 1994 Archibald Prize, General John Sanderson in Cambodia was hung in the 1995 Archibald, and a portrait of John Olsen hung in the 1997 Archibald. In 1998 he was himself painted by another artist (Jiawei Shen) for the Archibald, in Eyewitness. His documentary Soundtrack To War had 17 scenes featured in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
[edit] Subject matter
In many of Gittoes's paintings the figures seem to be hidden behind patches of paint, which shows the extent to which Gittoes feels there are no true heroes or villains. This also ties in with his view that modern warfare is becoming increasingly global and that everyone is affected by the horrors and tragedies.
Because of the nature of his subject it is not always easy for him to do his art. His methods to deal with this include pencil sketching at the site, photographs to work from later and painting at night in an army tent with a torch. His works emphasizes the figures in them; he sometimes enlarges heads and hands or puts the figures in the middle with an interesting backdrop, which represent this person’s life and their influences. These characters have all gone through hard times some have been remarkably successful and optimistic in their lives despite such setbacks while others are living meager existences. Gittoes often adds text to his art explaining the people events and context of the particular scene.
His images including: dead bodies, diseased children, blindness and amputation are confronting and take a different perspective to the media. Constant bombardment of disturbing images in the media has caused many people to feel “desensitized” to violence. It is harder however to become comfortable or familiar with Gittoe’s images, as his art appeals to human emotion and ideas of justice, rather than political theories.
Subjects he addresses are martyrdom, pollution, inhumanity, evil and physical disabilities. Gittoes pursues his career as war artist and the topics he looks into because he believes that by focusing and questioning man’s inhumanity will we be able to understand and change ourselves. “ I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself.”
George Gittoes makes use of metaphor and symbolism in his art. Gittoes, while in china paints two dying fish in a bowl, which are on sale at a market, he uses these fish as a metaphor for the massive pollution problems that comes with a developing country with a large population. Hidden messages are also embedded within his art, seemingly innocent subjects such as a haircut turn out to be comments on rich western men using poor women in poor countries for sex.
George Gitteos has traveled to many places for his art, including: Nicaragua, the Philippines, Somalia, Sinai, Southern Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique, South Africa, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Bougainville, Tibet, Timor, the Congo and Rwanda.
