Common Decency 2005

Selected Citations and Comments

Domestic perfection and hygiene contrast favourably with the bizarre brutality of a reality best forgotten. The female guard appears as a figure might from an advertisement for some domestic product. The green rubber gloves, so often worn for handling the prisoners or clearing blocked sinks, reinforce this impression. The half-tone drawing of the prisoners puts them in a more convincing reality than the glib handling of the woman; the bars of the cell behind her; the blanket hanging on them to dry.

Gerald Laing, 'Artist's Notes on War Paintings', unpublished manuscript, 2004