War memorial plaque to be made for the old British Legion Club Appledore
This drawing is a little over 7' long so when the work is dried and fired it will be 6'6".
The easiest way to explain this image is that it is the unknown, unfound soldier and his view (if it were possible) from his burial time to the horizon… our time. Listening to tales from friends and family and the memorable veteran, Harry Patch, made me wonder what a soldier dying in 1918 would think of our conflicts today.
It is important that the plaque is above eye level so the viewer will wonder why he can see the underside of the poppies and come to realise he is standing below ground. The landscape is full of clutter from the first and second world war, not least the bent railway line, from the Appledore railway sacrificed for the first World War.
The picture is full of symbolism and the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder: a feather, a butterfly, a dandelion clock with floating seeds. The visual spacial device of the pylon and power cables, an oil rig, a crashed helicopter, two species of poppies, a radio mast with mobile emitter are representative of war in our time.
I felt the inscription below the poppy field should read "The front line withers, but it is troops that fade, not flowers" from the poem" Insensibility" by Wilfred Owen. Texts from more recent times seemed strangely dated, yet this poem is timeless.
This drawing is the first draft: it needs more research, but it does illustrate the basis for the plaque. I plan to make it from white clay stained with a particular coloured brown oxide, crocus martis, with a vignetting (lighter in the centre around the sun and darker on the outer edges) making the plaque reminiscent of a sepia photograph.