Drawing war

When you enter the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga you’re entering a war zone.

The sound of a tomahawk cruise missile fizzles throughout the gallery, like a giant teapot boiling over.

“You are entering the American zone,” proclaims a white sign suspended about 12 feet above the ground.

The first image you see is a sculpture of a twisted up man being tortured, it’s a representation of what happened in the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq says a note posted beside it.

After stumbling past this image I came across what I call the three circles of horror, artist Kristan Horton’s depiction of the First World War. She was inspired by John Keegan’s audio-book “The First World War.”

There are three circles, each about a meter in diameter. Within each circle there are about a dozen smaller circles, they get smaller and smaller until they reach the centre.

I focus my attention on the first work, it tells a gruesome tale.

In between the dozen circles are scenes of the First World War. Battleships preparing to fire, decaying bodies, pictures of generals and military leaders, broken skulls, tombstones and lots and lots of artillery shells.

A telephone receiver is on top of a decaying human skull.

There are also scenes that seem out of place. There are labor organizers holding a strike, a tea kettle brewing and strangely enough pictures of dogs including a well manicured poodle.

You have to dig deeper into the First World War to interpret these images.

But at the centre of the circle lies an image which needs no interpreting. Three human skulls lie rotting… a scene of death itself.