INTERFETA painting of Australian soldiers in East Timor

Bert Ernie painted this from a scanned image that he found in a book about the INTERFET mission to East Timor by the Australian military.

INTERFET was formed to keep the Indonesian military from slaughtering the East Timorese for having the audacity to vote for an independent sovereign nation.

To this day Bert has a hatred for Indonesia and its people. He views them as scumbags. Yes, you read that right. Bert loathes people who live under despotic regimes if they do nothing about it. Harden the fuck up and kill the king.

Bert gave this painting to someone who served in East Timor. He is also the subject of another painting. Actually he is the subject of two of Bert’s paintings.

Dimensions: 50x70cm.
Painted: 2002.
Materials: Acrylic on MDF board.
Availability: Private collection.

The story behind INTERFET

Photorealism can be used to not only convey beautiful, shiny, reflective things but to communicate an idea. This painting depicts a sun-burnt Australian soldier on top of a vehicle manning a machine-gun as another soldier stands further back in their vehicle as they patrol the streets of Dili, the capitol of East Timor.

The soldiers were there as part of the INTERFET forces which were to protect the local Timorese population from the murderous pro-Indonesian militias who started using horrific violence after there was a successful vote for independence.

Bert Ernie has created a deliberate body of photorealism that doesn’t easily fall into the trap of being overly reliant on visual tricks to provide the viewer with something worth looking at. He believes that photorealist art should also be about ideas, as well as being easily understandable.

Here is some more information on INTERFET.

This painting has an abstract painting (Jungle 1) on the reverse side.

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