Every Soldier Was a Child
A burned canvas and a crayon memory.
Know More
This mixed-media painting explores our early cultural fascination with war, particularly through the eyes of children. The work began with a digitally collaged composition—photobashing together images from real historical conflicts and cinematic war scenes. This composite, inspired by the structure and chaos of traditional Japanese battle paintings, became the basis for an enormous black-and-white battlefield rendered in acrylic.
Once the painting was complete, I physically intervened in the surface: puncturing holes to mimic bullet wounds and burning through the canvas with a live torch. Behind this war-torn facade is a second image—revealed only through the damage—a crayon drawing of war as imagined by a child: a soldier, a gun, a tank. Innocent in form, but haunting in implication.
The bullet holes and burns reveal something underneath, a child’s drawing.
That innocence never disappears. It just gets buried.
Why are children always drawn to war?
More Works
SQUANBERT.COM
©2025
More Works
SQUANBERT.COM
©2025
Every Soldier Was a Child
A burned canvas and a crayon memory.
Know More
This mixed-media painting explores our early cultural fascination with war, particularly through the eyes of children. The work began with a digitally collaged composition—photobashing together images from real historical conflicts and cinematic war scenes. This composite, inspired by the structure and chaos of traditional Japanese battle paintings, became the basis for an enormous black-and-white battlefield rendered in acrylic.
Once the painting was complete, I physically intervened in the surface: puncturing holes to mimic bullet wounds and burning through the canvas with a live torch. Behind this war-torn facade is a second image—revealed only through the damage—a crayon drawing of war as imagined by a child: a soldier, a gun, a tank. Innocent in form, but haunting in implication.
The bullet holes and burns reveal something underneath, a child’s drawing.
That innocence never disappears. It just gets buried.
Why are children always drawn to war?
More Works
SQUANBERT.COM
©2025
Every Soldier Was a Child
A burned canvas and a crayon memory.
Know More
This mixed-media painting explores our early cultural fascination with war, particularly through the eyes of children. The work began with a digitally collaged composition—photobashing together images from real historical conflicts and cinematic war scenes. This composite, inspired by the structure and chaos of traditional Japanese battle paintings, became the basis for an enormous black-and-white battlefield rendered in acrylic.
Once the painting was complete, I physically intervened in the surface: puncturing holes to mimic bullet wounds and burning through the canvas with a live torch. Behind this war-torn facade is a second image—revealed only through the damage—a crayon drawing of war as imagined by a child: a soldier, a gun, a tank. Innocent in form, but haunting in implication.
The bullet holes and burns reveal something underneath, a child’s drawing.
That innocence never disappears. It just gets buried.
Why are children always drawn to war?
More Works
©2025