The renowned war artist John Keane has been commissioned by Christian Aid to produce a series of 11 new paintings for an exciting new exhibition Children in Conflict which opens at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on 24 November 2007.
John travelled to Angola, southern Africa, with the international development agency Christian Aid to visit post conflict projects funded by the charity and see for himself the issues faced by millions of young people living in this war torn country. He visited two Christian Aid partner organisations, SOS Habitat and IECA, working in the capital Luanda and the remote southerly area of Mavinga in Kuando Kubango province.
He spent time with children who had lost parents during the 27 year civil war, which ended in 2002, and saw how children and adults are working together to rebuild their communities. He also learnt that the spread of HIV is the next battle Angola’s 15 million inhabitants face.
John Keane said: ‘As a father of two, the plight of children in Angola invited poignant comparison. I met children who had endured horrific hardships, who had seen their parents murdered in front of them, had spent many years in Zambia as refugees; damaged children who have no choice but to hope the future will be better than their past.
‘In the work I have produced I have attempted to evoke the huge tasks of reconstruction and reconciliation in the face of enormous odds, but at the same time allude to the indomitable optimism of the human spirit I encountered in the new generation of post-war Angolans which, in difficult moments, I felt was almost the only resource available to them.’
Many of John’s pieces for this exhibition are large-scale figurative paintings with elements of collage and pattern evoking the Angolan culture and depicting the individuals whose stories moved him.
Almost half of Angola’s population is under the age of 15 and life expectancy is only 41 years. It has the third highest child mortality rate in the world with one in four children dying before their fifth birthday. This year Angola celebrates five years of peace but the road to full recovery will take much longer, it will need international assistance for many years to come.
Christian Aid has supported local organisations in Angola since 1985. It has classified Angola as a priority country as so much of its infrastructure has been destroyed. The work focuses on ensuring the government deliver on its promises to invest in infrastructure and development, the prevention of the spread of HIV and helping poor communities to improve their standard of living.
The Children in Conflict exhibition complements John’s paintings by bringing together high profile contemporary fine artists who have engaged with similar subjects.
Photography, photomontage, ceramics and installation by artists including Anthony Haughey, Laura Ford, Simon Norfolk, Emma Summers and Guy Tillim depict conflicts of the modern era across four continents.
Children in Conflict continues Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s exhibitions policy to collect and display art concerned with contemporary social and political issues, and will run concurrently with a display from the Gallery’s Northern Ireland Collection. Drawings by children attending the Christian Aid partner ‘Culture and Free Thought Association’ in Gaza will also be displayed.
Children in Conflict will run until 16 February 2008 in the new contemporary £6.7 million extension at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, which opened this spring, and will tour the UK in 2008.
For further press information, or to arrange an interview with John, contact Karen Hedges on 020 7523 2404 or email khedges@christian-aid.org.
Notes to editor
Christian Aid is an international development agency working in 50 countries with people of all religions and none.
John Keane was the official British war artist during the first gulf war and has work displayed in numerous public collections including the National Portrait Gallery and the Contemporary Art Society.
Previous exhibition by John Keane at Wolverhampton Art Gallery
1997 – John Keane A Painter in Focus
1997 – John Keane The Body Politic
John Keane was born in Hertfordshire in 1954 and attended Camberwell School of Art. His vivid, shocking, and often darkly comic paintings have focused on many of the most pressing political questions of our age. He came to national prominence in 1991 when he was appointed as official British war artist during the Gulf War.
His work has always been deeply concerned with conflict - military, political and social - in Britain and around the world. His subjects have ranged from Northern Ireland to Nicaragua, and from the British coal industry to the mass media. His topics are more commonly associated with journalism than fine art. Yet through his paintings Keane confronts issues and explores their subtleties in a unique and penetrating way.
Christian Aid partners in Angola visited by John Keane:
SOS Habitat – Luanda SOS Habitat, set up in 2003, protects poor people’s housing rights in the vastly overcrowded capital Luanda. Now the war is over, thousands of slum homes are under threat as the government and private businesses search for new land on which to build.
SOS Habitat uses legal and media outlets to publicise and challenge unlawful evictions and demolitions, and encourages poor people to use their votes to pressure the government to recognise their housing rights. SOS Habitat is a small secular organisation, made up of 10 local community activists. Christian Aid has been supporting it since 2004.
IECA – Mavinga IECA is the Angolan Congregational Church, Angola’s largest protestant church. It has supported IECA’s development work since 1997.
They work with war returnees in Kuando Kubango province, a very isolated area in southern Angola. The project supports families who have recently returned home, helping them to restart farming, dig wells, learn about health risks including HIV, and learn skills such as literacy, carpentry and bee-keeping.
ACJ – Luanda ACJ is the Association of Christian Youth. They run health, water, sanitation, education and vocational training projects in Luanda. Christian Aid funds ACJ’s malaria and HIV awareness work.
ACJ trains school and community volunteers to spread the word amongst their peers, speaking at events and going from house to house. To reach even more people, ACJ has also teamed up with a local theatre group which performs in schools, churches, market places and even in the street, attracting audiences of up to 1,500.