Listen to the poem If I Must Die
by poet Refaat Alareer

Using William Blake's prophetic poetry, Jungian psychoanalysis, and J.Campbell's Hero's Journey in several paintings and prints, I examine the AUKUS tripartite defence pact and US-China great power tensions through a multiple frame of masculine violence, PTSD and culture. My paintings play with literature, film, music, theology and the mythical archetypes within our national cultures.

Replacing political and military explainers of war with this imaginative, spiritual and literary lens, I bring my own personal family history into my art to challenge the elite geopolitical narratives driving the ‘Indo-Pacific’ towards war. The overarching theme in my paintings is to encourage us all to stop, think, look at all angles, and use our creative imaginations to write different stories that preserve, not destroy, life.

The AUKUS Chronicles is a way to capture this “sub-stream” within my recent body of work beginning with my 2021 painting Australia a Prophecy which explores the subconscious, literary, and mythological tensions in the Asia-Pacific (aka ‘Indo-Pacific’). This became an article published for Critical Military Studies (Routledge, London, Vol 9 #2, 2023), then a January 2023 talk to The Blake Society in London. I wrote a 3,500 word essay and four canvases for the Society’s 2023 issue of their magazine VALA themed ‘War & Peace’.

In my VALA essay and paintings I dive into Blake’s 1790 poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as a course in complexity which I created for myself, but am sharing to help others. William Blake’s poetry warns us against repeating the wars that Blake witnessed in his time.

This is my contribution, within my capacity as an Artist, to this difficult times we live in, hopeful always to prevent the horrors of another war in the Pacific. Some posts about Gaza are also included below, as AUKUS is not limited to the Asia-Pacific.

My paintings are more a people’s record than a public record. Few read past memorandums from governments to understand wars. Ordinary people look to Art. When we are gone, young people, our archaeologists and truth tellers of tomorrow, will unpack the dishonour of the men & women in today’s governments & militaries from what we leave behind. So, make something beautiful, and tell your truth.

[Updated 16th April 2024]

Public Talks on
Art & War

My AUKUS Chronicles, & all the artwork I’ve done on this topic, I dedicate to my parent’s and their families’ struggles as traumatised children of WW2. It is to all the children & their families in all past, present and future wars.