Portrait, Corporal Dianne Cuttler

Background information

Lyndell Brown and Charles Green are Australian artists who live in Melbourne and make paintings and photographic art works together. They created this painting after travelling to Afghanistan as Australian official war artists in 2007. See more of their work from Afghanistan here.

Australian official war artists are selected to make art works about the activities and experiences of those working in the Australian Defence Force.

In Afghanistan, Lyndell and Charles saw women working in many different and dangerous jobs. They visited a military hospital at Kandahar Airfield and learned that the hospital staff came from various countries including the Netherlands, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. The artists met Australian Corporal Dianne Cuttler at the hospital. She was a nurse whose job was to fly into dangerous areas in helicopters that were like ambulances in the sky. Dianne would help rescue and care for wounded soldiers and civilians so that they could safely reach the military hospital.

Questions

1. Look at the badge on Dianne’s arm; what symbols can you see? Why might she be wearing flags from different countries? What does the symbol of the red cross mean? Where might you have seen this symbol before?
2. Can you sit just the way Dianne is sitting in this painting? How do you feel when you are sitting like Dianne?
3. What do you think Dianne might have been thinking about while she sat in the helicopter?
4. Can you see any shadows in this painting? What colours have the artists used to make these shadows?

Activities

1. After thinking about the questions, write a story about this painting.
2. If you could write a letter to Dianne, what questions would you ask about working in Afghanistan? Work together with a partner or as a class.
3. Close your eyes and think about the sounds that the helicopter might make while it is flying. How might you communicate with people around loud noise?
4. Look at Dianne’s uniform in the painting, and compare it with a nurse’s uniform from more than 100 years ago in the First World War. Think about the colours, symbols and material. What might have changed or stayed the same?

5. Lyndall and Charles worked together to create this artwork. You might like to make your own collaborative work with a partner, using collage, painting, drawing, or sculpture.