An Amherst artist is planning to paint oil portraits of 100 people involved in wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Scott Palmer served in both Iraq and Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003.
WESTFIELD – An Amherst artist putting faces to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will bring his exhibit, “100 Faces of War Experience,” to the Westfield Athenaeum. The exhibit on display in the Athenaeum’s Jasper Rand Art Museum will run from Nov. 2 - 30 and features paintings by Matthew E. Mitchell.
For the “100 Faces of War Experience,” Mitchell is planning to paint oil portraits of 100 people involved in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most portraits depict soldiers, while some involve civilians. Mitchell, who started the project in 2005, is working on his 41st portrait currently. He hopes to have 100 portraits completed by 2013.
Each portrait is accompanied by a text written by the person pictured. In the case of the deceased, loved ones have written a statement to accompany the portrait.
“The idea was to do something which kind of brought home the reality of the wars through the widest spectrum of the American audience,” Mitchell said. “But when I started doing the portraits, and meeting families and meeting people in person, I started realizing the stories they had to tell were just as important as the paintings I could make.”
Mitchell said he hopes the words resonate with viewers.
“I thought, this is the way to really connect with everyone, and maybe go quite a bit deeper, and really explore what these wars mean through those people who were a part of them,” he said.
The first person Mitchell painted was Jeffrey Lucey, the Belchertown soldier whose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder led to his suicide.
“In many ways, I talk to people and they see a way of communicating through my project,” he said. “They tell stories and I relay them. You contemplate; no one’s telling you what to think. No one’s directing your gaze; it’s a completely unguided tour.”
Marjory Lehan of the Waronoke Peace Action group and a member of the Jasper Rand Art Committee, which chose to show the “100 Faces of War Experience,” said she saw the exhibit in Northampton and was struck by it.
“(The statements) are about their experiences, both pro (war) and con,” she said. “They’re regular people, people we see all the time. They’re us, they’re proud to serve their country. It’s very interesting.”
Lehan and fellow Waronoke Peace Action group member Ed Brown are sponsoring a dramatic reading of selections from “Johnny Got His Gun,” by Dalton Trumbo, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. The reading will take place in the Jasper Rand Art Museum.
“It’s so nice to do a reading about war with the portraits of soldiers around us,” Lehan said. “‘Johnny Got His Gun’ was very popular in the 1970s during the Vietnam War protests.”
Mitchell said he hopes viewers walk away with a new view of the wars and people involved.
“It introduces you to a kind of emotional reality of this experience, of these wars,” he said. “I think when there are 100 portraits it will be on such a scale that it will be an important place where people can go just to feel the American experience of these wars.”
The exhibition part of a “Teaching American History” grant, will include several portraits of Massachusetts residents, including Claudia Lefko, Tyler Boudreau, Margaret Oglesby, Alexander Arrendondo, Scott Palmer, Steve Mumford, Marine Canaan Alicandro, Pablo Rodriguez and Lydia Rodriguez.
The “100 Faces” project is a not for profit project of the Veterans Education Project and the New York Foundation for the Arts. It is largely funded by donations.