Aanya Agarwal

My artwork was inspired by Hendra Gunawan's painting, War and Peace. Gunawan was born in July 1918 and was well known for his ability to combine modern Western techniques and his Indonesian heritage. He was a guerrilla in Indonesia, fighting against the Dutch colonial rule. In his artworks, I can see the raw inspiration he took from this, particularly in War and Peace which features two Indonesian fighters. After the Dutch successfully colonised Indonesia, Gunawan began protesting against their governing, ultimately leading in him being prosecuted. Despite this, Gunawan did not stop painting; he would paint on any material he could find. Gunawan passed away in 1983 in Bali, Indonesia.

In 1963, Hendra Gunawan produced the painting "War and Peace" which features two Indonesian fighters in the middle of the painting, one very normal in appearance, the other with striking blue skin. In the background, there is a beautiful mountain range that I believe Gunawan intended to be the "peace" part of his artwork. The consistent colour theme of the painting is mainly blues and greens in the background, with quite a lot of grey as well.

In my painting, I took inspiration from War and Peace's stunning landscape which I put into my own composition, as well as the blue/green colour scheme. I originally attempted to make the hue of the sky in my painting different to the one of War and Peace, so I opted to try a sunset. However, I didn't like how bright it became, so I painted over it and made it much more similar to Hendra Gunawan's painting. In order to give my artwork a vaster range in texture, I decided to cut my mountains out of cardboard and hot-glue them in layers on top of my base cardboard, and then I used a sponge with grey and white paint to dab clouds on the mountains, although I don't like the way that turned out. I also chose to include a stream in front of the mountain by using texture paste, and then using a sponge to apply the turquoise colour to make it look more like water. Next, I cut the number two out of cardboard using a stencil and hot-glued it to my painting. After that, I used a sponge dipped in white paint to surround my number. Finally, I painted the carboard number, choosing to do it in black in order to really contrast the enveloping white.

I chose to include the number two, because when I saw the painting War and Peace in the National Gallery, I was somehow taken back a few years to when I used to take walks in Macritchie Reservoir every weekend with my best friend. The usage of the number two was supposed to symbolise the two of us, because we use to go alone.