My inspiration for my artwork was War and Peace by Hendra Gunawan (1950). Gunawan was an Indonesian painter, he was best known for his western paintings combined with traditional South East Asian aesthetics. He went to the University of People’s Art in Badang and spent most of his time in Jakarta (Indonesia) but in 1965 he went into imprisonment for 12 years where he met his wife, she was the inspiration for most of the colours incorporated in his work. The reason I decided to choose this specific painting is because I found the bright blues and greens incorporated really stood out to me and I particularly liked how the artwork made us think about the different characters and why they are there. Something that really caught my eye is how the figure on the left has a blue skin colour implying he is a spirit or is more important than the man on the left.  Another reason why I chose this is because this painting is about men fighting in a war.

 My Great Grandfather was a pilot for the RAF in WW2. He was also the inspiration for 2 of the numbers I used in my own painting. I also chose the number 15 as  my Grandfather worked for the British airforce for 15 years! The other number was 168910 because this was his personal number in the air force. My last number I used was 7, this is a wider link that stands for the 70,000 soldiers who lost their lives from this war. I also included two symbols in this piece, they are the RAF badges.