Exhibition Review - The Historians

The Exhibit: the exhibit I am going to review is Julian Woollatt's The Historians at Southend Library on Wednesday 9th July 2008.

What I Thought: I like to take a quiet look around at everything before I make any kind of judgement. The reason for this is because I prefer to see everything as a whole picture. As for me, if there is an exhibit that one particular artist has done, he must have a certain style to his work, so I prefer to try and find this style before I begin making any kind of judgement on their work. From first gaze it's obvious to me that the artist has a keen interest in the military, in particular early wars (World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War). What struck me at first was the eyes in the portraits, some of which were staring right at the viewer, where as others almost seemed like a momento. As I moved through the exhibit, there were staged shots of re-enactment soldiers on the front lines of Vietnam, also a group shot of World War I re-enactment soldiers standing behind sandbags in a trench. I particularly liked this one as the colour blended well, they were all pale greens and browns which all blended well together to create quite an interesting piece. Towards the end of the exhibit, there was almost a comedy piece in my opinion, two nazis eating ice creams. This stood out for me as the nazis are generally known for being evil and yet here they stood, eating ice cream smiling.I would recommend this exhibit to anyone who is into the militaria as the pictures have clearly had alot of thought put into each shot, as well as the artists clear dedication to the art.

Lewis Wilkes