- Author
- A.N. Other
- Subjects
- Biographies and personal histories, History - post WWII
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Jervis Bay II
- Publication
- September 2023 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
By Beryllouise Mitchell
In 1999, after the 30 August ballot in East Timor (later Timor-Leste) that was to determine the territory’s future went drastically wrong, the United Nations sanctioned an International Force East Timor (INTERFET) comprising troops from 16 countries, tasked with restoring peace and stability.
On 12 December 1999 the ADF’s high-speed catamaran HMAS Jervis Bay left Darwin for the 12-hour voyage to Dili, the capital of East Timor. Two of the people on board that day were artist Wendy Sharpe and Scott Bevan. Bevan was hitching a ride with the military as a media representative to report on the INTERFET’s operations, and also on a Christmas concert for the troops that would include performers Kylie Minogue and John Farnham.
On the other hand thirty-nine-year-old Wendy was travelling as an Official Artist for the Australian War Memorial (AWM) appointed to observe and document the Australian peacekeepers. Sharpe was the first woman to be appointed an Official War Artist since World War II, and only the fourth female war artist at that time. The three before her were Nora Heysen, Stella Bowen and Sybil Craig, who were outnumbered in that war by 47 male Official War Artists.
The trip to Dili turned into a horror ride of seasickness for the 250 Kenyan soldiers onboard, who were having their first taste of sea travel. According to Bevan’s account every garbage bin, toilet bowel and plastic bag had a soldier’s head in it vomiting. He likened the trip to a voyage of the damned. And then he saw Wendy Sharpe.
Crawling out from under a row of seats, and trying to avoid all the vomit, the artist sat down ‘close to the puke, pulled out a charcoal pencil and drawing paper and got to work’. After introducing himself Bevan asked if he could do a story on Sharpe, which then later formed the chapter on her in his book Battle Lines: Australian Artists at War,published in 2011.
In Bevan’s words ‘Wendy Sharpe is celebrated for her figurative work….and she’s not afraid to put her own body on the line, or in the lines, for her work. The lines she draws are fluid and seemingly carefree, and the colours she employs are bold and uninhibited, just like the artist herself.’
On the trip Sharpe told Bevan that she’d never had any experience of anything military before and couldn’t think of anyone less likely to be involved in something military. But having a love of watching people and drawing them, when the offer came to go to East Timor as an official artist, even though she had reservations about being with the army and as someone who abhors violence, she accepted.
The artist didn’t study the works of the earlier war artists; relying on her powers of observation, she prepared herself by reading about East Timor and then packed her sketchbooks, charcoals, gouache and pencils into a sturdy satchel that could withstand the wet season rain. Her aim was to sketch as much as possible in the field and develop some of the drawings into major paintings after returning to Australia.
Before leaving for Dili Sharpe spent two weeks at Robertson Barracks in Darwin, observing the soldiers, getting to know them, drawing them as they prepared for deployment and carrying out their chores. One of the young soldiers she got to know was Corporal Alicia Carr.
Carr’s boyfriend, also in the army in East Timor, had asked her for a nude photograph ‘to keep the home fires burning’. As Carr didn’t really want to do that, she asked Wendy to draw her nude instead. Wendy agreed ‘as long as I can draw you in your hat and boots’. Sharpe wanted to depict Carr as a soldier.
Despite being warned that one of the drawings of her would go to the War Memorial, Carr agreed to go ahead. Sharpe depicted her ‘sitting forward in a coy pose, wearing her boots, her slouch hat, her dog tags, a smile – and nothing else’. Sharp believes it’s the only female nude in the War Memorial.
Having been briefed in Darwin, Sharpe knew she was sailing towards a country battered by war, and from out at sea the Timorese coast looked like a paradise, but this picture was dispelled the minute she stepped ashore. She started drawing immediately and spent three weeks travelling everywhere accompanied by a military escort. Although it was shocking to the artist, she found that being among sandbag barricades and barbed wire was extraordinary. For that very reason, having that ‘freshness and amazement at everything’ helped her draw it all.
In his book Bevan records that Wendy ‘felt respected, even accepted, by the rank and file, and not only because she was providing visual confirmation that the soldiers were doing something worthwhile, something historic. They also liked the fact that she was working hard’. The artist was drawing all the time, from morning until bedtime, with her drawings being like a diary, just trying to record it all.
He says that Sharpe thought being a woman in the field was an advantage as ‘both the soldiers and the East Timorese were more willing to open up to her’. Sharpe says she saw ‘incredible acts of kindness and heroism, and people enduring after the most incredibly awful things had been done, somehow coping’.
Wendy returned to Australia with more than 500 sketches on paper. A few months after her appointment ended a large exhibition of 64 works titled New Beginnings – East Timor was held at the Australian War Memorial.
According to the AWM website Sharpe’s ‘empathy for the East Timorese people and her love of figures and faces is evident in her work. The works of art completed during her official appointment present a positive view of the challenge of rebuilding a nation. Her work showed the compassionate side of soldiering in a country torn apart by conflict.’
Born in 1960, Wendy lives and works in Sydney and Paris. Among her many awards are the Sulman Prize, two Travelling Scholarships, the Portia Geach Memorial Award (twice) and the Archibald Prize. Wendy has also been a finalist in the Sulman Prize thirteen times and the Archibald Prize eight times. She has held over 70 solo exhibitions around Australia and internationally. In 2023 she was appointed AM for significant service to the arts and the community.