Object: Personal artefacts.
Oil and tissue on board.
Responding to personal artefacts in the collections of the Norfolk Regimental Museum proved to be both challenging and rewarding. Rebecca was inspired by the warmth and honesty expressed by brothers Sydney and Bertie Smith in letters to their mother written between 1914 and 1916.
This artwork reflects on the insight these sources give into cycles of violence and the everyday acts of resilience that counter it. The work confronts the artist’s distance from the person who may be lost, through unwritten letters which have been twisted and silenced. The subject of the painting has been wrapped up carefully and brought to safety like the carefully packed artefacts in the archive. The textures of the piece are symbolic of a condition, like that of the brothers, both fragile and brave.
Instagram: @rebeccahazel.art
