Home > William Kelly's artist statement for 'Peace or war: the big picture'

William Kelly's artist statement for 'Peace or war: the big picture'

The following artist statement by William Kelly was published in the room brochure to accompany Peace or war: the big picture, on display in the La Trobe Reading Room from 3 October to 4 December 2016.

A starting point for me is the image of a mother and her infant – my wife and one of our children. What beauty, love, grace and dignity; a parent’s love and an infant with no malice, no hatred, no guns, no bombs.

It’s no secret I don’t like violence – domestic, sexual, by individuals or the state or, for that matter, in war. We fund and work to reduce the former violences, but simply accept war. We no longer accept that two people who disagree in the privacy of their home can assault one another, nor should we condone that 20 million people on either side of a border who disagree can assault and kill each other.

After the two decades of mourning that followed WWI we said, ‘let us keep our promise to disarm and make peace possible’. We failed then and we fail now, trying to forget we ever made that promise. It gets no official support at all in our four years of war commemorations.

Speaking against war is a tricky one and making an artwork about peace is also tricky. Making a print like Peace or war: the big picture – in the tradition of other socially aware artists from Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso and Käthe Kollwitz to Noel Counihan and Keith Haring – is both a statement acknowledging that multiples provide wider access to works of art and a statement of solidarity.

There are those who say talk of peace is naïve, yet we regularly let our politicians lead us into war after war – the lowest common denominator in human relations. Verifiably for 44 of the past 71 years we have resisted peace, and in the remaining 27 years we have prepared for war. I guess it’s understandable that nothing seems to upset those in the war industry as much as the talk of real peace or criticism of the mechanics of war. Pablo Picasso, Arthur Miller, Glen Tomasetti, Daniel Berrigan, Käthe Kollwitz, Mary Hammond, John Lennon, Noel Counihan and many others were listed with ASIO, the FBI or the CIA, faced legal action or were seen by various government agencies as persons of interest. They, plus Arthur Boyd, Michael Leunig and others like them, are the real unsung heroes who have spoken out for peace. They tried to save lives, not take them.

I was once called naïve but trust me, I am smart enough to know that we can be better than this.

We are told every war we enter is a ‘just war’. Yet it is still, sadly and irrevocably, just war.

Today, politicians listen to military intelligence. Like an errant tale that comes to dog the wag, those told about dying honourably in unjust wars by our politicians should come to dog them also.

From Goya to Kate Tempest, artists have helped me see alternatives to violence. Their contribution and idealism was there with every mark I made along the way; unashamedly mine is an artwork about hope rather than despair, building rather than destructing.

I know art has power and I am absolutely convinced that although a painting will never stop a bullet, a painting can stop a bullet from being fired.