Keeping the peace: stories of Australian peacekeepers - The Artists

Rick Amor

The painter, printmaker, illustrator and cartoonist Rick Amor was born in 1948. He studied at Caulfield Institute of Technology and at the National Gallery School from 1966 to 1968 under fellow artist, John Brack (1920- 1999). He has worked in a variety of media and was the first artist -in-residence at the Trades Hall, Melbourne in 1980. Amor is best known for his often-surreal depictions of industrial, urban and cityscapes and their inhabitants which are characterised by a sense of alienation and disquiet. In 1999 he was appointed an official war artist in East Timor and was given the honorary status of an officer.

Christian Clare Robertson

Christian Clare Robertson was born in Oxford, England in 1946. She moved to Australia as a child and studied at the South Australian School of Art during the 1960s. She is best known for her large-scale oil paintings of extreme natural phenomena, and has travelled extensively capturing the landscapes of Hawaii, Iceland, Antarctica, Greenland and more recently Northern Australia. She has worked as an art educator, curator, gallery director and artist. Her work is represented in many states and regional galleries in Australia. In 2000 she travelled as an unofficial artist to East Timor recording the activities of the soldiers going about their business on active duty.

George Gittoes

Born in Sydney in 1949, George Gittoes is a printmaker, painter, photographer and sculptor. In 1969 he travelled to the United States where he was influenced by the African-American social -realist painter, Joe Delaney. Returning to Australia he began to paint figurative images and co-founded with fellow artist Martin Sharp (1942-) the 'Yellow House', a multi-media environmental gallery and performance space complex. During the 1980s his work included holograms, installations, film and performance pieces. In 1986 Gittoes travelled to Nicaragua where he produced a series of drawings of soldiers at the frontline of the Contra war. Since then, he has been interested in the depiction of the physical as well as psychological impact of conflict in a number of regions throughout the world.

Robert McRae

Born in New South Wales in 1954, Robert McRae attended the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education and Sydney Teacher's College during the 1970s. Since the 1980s, he has worked as a teacher at a number of TAFE colleges in New South Wales, including Wollongong and Dapto. He is an established and accomplished watercolour painter and printmaker who has exhibited extensively in New South Wales and the Northern Territory. Works by McRae are held in the collections of the University of Wollongong, BHP (Shipping) and a number of corporations. He painted a series of watercolours of the naval activities in Darwin Harbour in late 1999 which teaching at Northern Territory University.

Lynne Norton

Lynne Norton was born in Fairlight, New South Wales and moved to Western Australia in 1958. During the 1980s, she studied at the Claremont School of Art and Curtin University. She has won a number of art awards and prizes and her works are represented in collections in both Australia and Europe. Based in Perth, she is best known for her depictions of maritime subjects. Lynne Norton is also the daughter of the official war artist, Frank Norton (1916-1983) who served as an artist attached to the Royal Australian Navy during both the Second World War and the Korean War.

Wendy Sharpe

The painter Wendy Sharpe was born in New South Wales in 1960. She studied at the Seaforth Technical College in 1978 and later obtained a degree in Visual Arts from the City Art Institute and a Master's degree in Fine Arts from the University of New South Wales. She has won numerous prizes and scholarships, including a residency at the Cite Internationale des Artes, Paris in 1986 and received the Archibald Prize in 1996 for her self-portrait, 'Diana of Erskinville'. She is primarily a figurative painter and drawing from life is a central theme in her work. In 1999 she was appointed an official artist and covered the INTERFET peacekeeping operations in East Timor.