Afghanistan War Portraits & Recordings

Archibald Prize winner, Ben Quilty, spent a month in Afghanistan as official war artist capturing the people and scenes around him.  They include a sketch of an Australian special forces soldier with the unmistakable 1000-yard stare of one who has seen and knows too much.  Historian Peter Pedersen accompanied the artist, recording the experiences of soldiers for the War Memorial’s oral history program.  “I interviewed a search team soldier who has been blown up twice by IEDs (insurgent improvised explosive devices),” he said.  That interview is now preserved in the memorial’s sound archive, but Quilty got something different. “Ben got what he looked like,” Mr Pedersen said. Full story click here.