Tower and Town, April 2020 (view the full edition)Arts ReviewIn the nearby garrison town of Tidworth is the Help for Heroes Recovery Centre, Tedworth House. Tedworth House is the Southern hub where H4H provide recovery, rehabilitation and support to veterans of war. Two months after Help for Heroes became established in 2011, local artist Jenny Arthy joined the charity, and became part of the Rolling Recovery Programme. This was an initiative designed as a series of taster sessions for ex-service men and women, encouraging them to be involved in educational, mindful, creative and physical activities. Jenny developed both the art room and the painting and sculpture courses from scratch. Art at War is a mostly retrospective exhibition of work produced by these men and women. Their shared experience of war, and the unimaginable mental, physical and psychological consequences of conflict are displayed in many different ways - in sculpture, drawings and paintings. This is a tremendously sobering exhibition. Evidently, there is a great number of truly talented artists sharing this space. Their work is raw, honest, powerful, difficult and complicated. No two pieces are the same. Each one uniquely tells a different story of trauma, pain and recovery. Of course, in a lot of cases, this is still very much an ongoing process. Importantly, this is not an exhibition about patriotism. It is, in my belief, quite the opposite. It is about war, and what war is and what war does. It is, though, also about recovery and comeback. 'This exhibition is, without doubt, a testament to the extraordinary healing ability of art; to release and give expression to experiences too difficult to verbalise.' Jenny Arthy quotes from the artists themselves: 'Art is the best painkiller I've ever had.' Art at War was at The White Horse Gallery between 27th February - 14th March 2020. |
