THERE’S a dark broodiness to Lev Vykopal’s paintings of sunflower fields, forests and the rocky beaches of Gallipoli which belie the tranquil landscape portrayed.
Then there are the massive portraits of nine Australians and nine Turks, descendants of those who 100 years ago faced each other on the battlefield.
The Fremantle artist tracked down families of WA’s 11th Battalion with the help of the WA Geological Society, which undertook to identify the soldiers who’d famously posed on the Cheops pyramid in 1915.
“They have found 450 of the 750, and through them I got to meet a lot of the descendants.”
Tourism is a boon for the Gallipoli economy and Australians are well liked says Vykopal following a residency in a small village close to the peninsula.
Gallipoli means “beautiful city” in Greek and the strategically important area has been fought over for centuries.
‘sketches were done on all fours … there’s a sense of claustrophobia’
“There’s a classical history to the place. It’s been rolled across by Ottoman Turks and Alexander the Great. It’s been built and destroyed and rebuilt…[And] for Australia it’s a national epic and legend.”
With shells exploding around them, ANZACs digging trenches often came across ancient artifacts, as well as a 3000-year-old grave.
Such areas were roped off, demonstrating the “ludicrousness” of the war, says Vykopal: “in being shelled and killed and doing an archeological dig”.
Overgrown by vegetation, some surviving trenches are now akin to the covered “tunnels” that soldiers endured for months: “[My] sketches were done on all-fours.…there’s a sense of claustrophobia in the painting,” Vykopal says.
Ground-down rocks and water-eroded clay bricks collected at Gallipoli are used in some of the works, adding a gritty realism.
Others use photogrammetry, with photos overlaid on a backdrop of the earthy medium mixed with shellac.
Running in conjunction with Paul Uhlmann’s sky portraits, Gallipoli: Earth & Sky, Gallipoli The Beautiful City is on at the Fremantle Arts Centre, April 11–May 24.
by JENNY D’ANGER
