For the War and Peace exhibition at the Undercroft, Norwich in July 2015, my focus was on the figures of “Kids with guns” recurrent lyric from the Gorillaz song. This was inspired by a photograph of my father and uncle playing with toy guns and aeroplanes in 1940, towards the start of WW2. This image is a contrast to the ones of more recent images of child soldiers, of the faces of children seen up close holding weaponry. I have also been influenced by both Goya’s ‘3rd May 1808’ and Manet’s ‘Execution of Maximilian’ paintings, so the image included here is of a detail of a man seen at close range as if facing a wartime firing squad.
