Studio Updates: ‘The Guy at the Gym’-A Portrait of Vietnam War veteran Kelvin Ferris

The Guy at the Gym. A portrait of Kelvin Ferris, an Australian war veteran from Western Australia. Artist Carl Gopalkrishnan, May 2022

Artist Statement
The Guy at the Gym (2022)

I’ve known Kelvin Ferris for over 10 years and, in that time, it has been clear to me that his service to Australia at the Battle of Coral-Balmoral during the Vietnam War in 1968 has remained a constant and difficult companion. This year, shrapnel embedded in his chest from that battle moved out from his ribcage. After it was removed, he seemed more open to talk about his experiences. We talked about what that piece of metal meant to him personally and things his closed memoir at the Australian War Memorial didn’t reveal. I admire in Kelvin the qualities he keeps private.

This is a portrait of a friend I know here in Western Australia. It’s a 12 x16 inch acrylic painting on stretched canvas. I do very few portraits, only when the subject matter really moves me and aligns with my values. They sit outside of my exhibition narrative arcs, but I really wanted to paint my sitter Kelvin from my local Perth community where I’m living at the moment. The title is a cautionary tale to the young.

From youth into their older years, the young people we send into war carry visible and invisible scars. Politicians today are enthralled by metaphors of World War II while remaining silent on Australia’s role in the Vietnam War. I suspect that many Vietnam War veterans see right through these opportunistic metaphors. They are a pretty down to earth mob. I was relieved that he liked it and could feel his own story in it.

“…I replaced his actual medals with theatre masks from ancient Greece, to translate the many conflicting emotions of his stories which officialdom never seems to capture”

In this painting process, I learned that the long and complex journey of many Vietnam veterans lead them to overcome and often reinvent stereotypes of nationalism by distilling the threads of common humanity that bond people forced to fight each other together forever. The effects of shared trauma are like glass slivers. They cut their cultural and historical assumptions into pieces -and also for anyone re-telling those stories.

“Each tone of red in this portrait tells different stories, different timeframes from his time in the Battle of Coral-Balmoral”

In that retelling, I looked for hidden stories between his private experience, the public meaning of his medals and his physical body. That was like walking between several walls. Sometimes his answers to my questions evoked Odysseus avoiding The Shades in the Underworld which is entirely understandable. The painting still feels to me more like a diorama than a canvas.

Painting intensely private people isn’t easy. I feel grateful to my lifelong interest in literature and symbolism. While I was faithful to the original colours of the ribbons on Kelvin’s medals, I replaced his actual medals with theatre masks from ancient Greece, to translate the many conflicting emotions of his stories which officialdom never seems to capture. The theatricality and politics of ANZAC Day tries so hard to blur those complex stories into flat shades, and those forces are important to hear too, because we are complicit in other people’s silences.

“The effects of shared trauma are like glass slivers. They cut their cultural and historical assumptions into pieces - and also for anyone re-telling those stories”

The Unit Citation for Gallantry on the injured figures in the foreground tell a personal story of the battle for Kelvin, as well as the location of the shrapnel that stayed with him until recently, when it seemed to complete its journey from his rib cage to the light of the outside world after half a century. The simplicity of that journey of the shrapnel through his body reminded me of the stillness of American folk art portraits from the 19th century. I believe that was sitting behind my brush the whole time. Perhaps that American influence, in terms of the Vietnam War and still today, is a poem in itself waiting to be written.

This is also my reddest canvas. I’ve use reds before, but not this almost decorative claustrophobia that it evokes for me personally. Each tone of red in this portrait tells different stories, different timeframes from his time in the Battle of Coral-Balmoral which I can’t share outright to maintain those closed gates that means so much to Kelvin - and perhaps to every returning soldier.