GERALD LAING

Common Decency

Catalogue raisonné no. 682

Artist's CR 621

2005

Kinkell

Oil on canvas

32 x 36 inches / 0 cm

Exhibitions:
• Gerald Laing: Iraq War Paintings, Galerie Salvador, Paris, 2005
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• Gerald Laing: Iraq War Paintings, Globe Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2007
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Literature:
• Gerald Laing, 'Artist’s Notes on War Paintings', unpublished manuscript, 2004
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Selected Citations and Comments

Domestic perfection and hygiene contrast favourably with the bizarre brutality of a reality best forgotten. The female guard appears as a figure might from an advertisement for some domestic product. The green rubber gloves, so often worn for handling the prisoners or clearing blocked sinks, reinforce this impression. The half-tone drawing of the prisoners puts them in a more convincing reality than the glib handling of the woman; the bars of the cell behind her; the blanket hanging on them to dry.

Gerald Laing, 'Artist's Notes on War Paintings', unpublished manuscript, 2004