LACHLAN DRAKE
Broken Promise
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 75cm
1914, A time when for many Australians the world was only as wide as the reach of a horse and cart. A promise of “great adventure”. To see the world. Coo-ee! Campaign posters, with imagery of a Tall triumphant Australian soldier silhouetted against a golden sun. Won’t you come?
“Broken Promise” stands in visceral contrast to that imagery. It is not supposed to depict a specific individual, but the reality of day-to-day life at war. Captured through gaze, posture and environment.
Twelve thousand miles from home the reality of the “adventure” sinks in. The heroic myth dissolves. The golden sunset, replaced with the dark and suffocating walls of the trenches. The idea of triumph, giving way to exhaustion. The realisation of the true cost of the ticket he was sold.
Unit Colour Patch
The 14th Battalion, 4th brigade
Jacka’s Mob
“We were not soldiers in the sense that the word is usually understood. We were a mob of Australians who had come across the sea to do a certain job, and we wanted to get it done as quickly as possible and get back home.” -Edgar Rule
