“I think I must be one of the last artists born during WW2 still painting the conflict as a subject,” famous artist Paul Joyce reflects as his exhibition Remembrances of War prepares to open next weekend (Sept 13) at Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock.
Paul, who’s work is held in a number of prominent private and public collections, from the V&A and National Portrait Gallery, to the National Museum of Wales and the US Library of Congress, is now bringing this extraordinary exhibition to Woodstock, featuring striking scenes from the WW2, drawn from a combination of memory, imagination and reality.
Paul, known for his photography and filmmaking alongside his painting, explains: “‘My first thoughts on beginning the series were to paint exactly what I remembered, but then I began to throw the net wider, and included London images which I had not personally experienced, as for the length of the war I was based in Hampshire.’
his mother was pursued across a field in Whitchurch by machine gun fire from a German plane while heavily pregnant
Returning to the project he started some years ago, the new exhibition represents some of his recollections of the war – a frequent theme being the a combination of the apocalyptic and banal where Bovril and beans clash with bombs, a German fighter plane lies amidst the haystacks of the English countryside and the Tower of London crouches beneath barrage balloons.
Mixing childhood memories of playing in the rubble of a bombed-out Crystal Palace intertwine with more general cultural memories of a city, nation, and world nearly destroyed, his paintings reflecting this interplay between first-hand and received experience.
‘My first thoughts on beginning the series were to paint exactly what I remembered, but then I began to throw the net wider’
Expect the smouldering detritus of South London sitting alongside imagined scenes of destruction in Hiroshima and elsewhere across Europe, his paintings devoid of people, populated instead by planes, historic objects, architecture and nature to emphasise the apocalyptic landscapes he paints using striking, dramatic colours.
Born in 1940 while WW2 raged around him, he cites Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious as his influences, alongside childhood memories and family anecdotes leaving a lasting impression, his mother being pursued across a field in Whitchurch by machine gun fire from a German plane while heavily pregnant, a classic example.
The painting ‘Der Friedhof’ is Paul’s homage to Paul Nash, and depicts a WW2 aircraft dump, one of which Nash painted in Oxfordshire, which stretched from the Garsington Road almost to Horspath
Accompanied by local oral history recordings alongside the exhibition, covering wartime childhood memories, one recollects making things out of bits of scrap recovered from the planes in scrapyard dumps.
The painting ‘Der Friedhof’ from the collection is Paul’s homage to Paul Nash, and depicts a WW2 aircraft dump, one of which Nash painted in Oxfordshire, which stretched from the Garsington Road almost to Horspath.
It contained over eight miles of trackways between rows of salvaged allied aircraft that had crashed in southern England; mostly RAF and USAAF, but later in the war many German aircraft as well.
The exhibition welcomes visitors of all ages, with special activities and interactive experiences for children, including a reconstructed 1940s bedroom, and arts and crafts areas. Entry to the exhibition includes entry to the other galleries
Paul Joyce: Remembrances of War is at Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock from Sept 13 – Nov 18. BOOK HERE
