BUNDEENA and international artist Jiawei Shen has given his own personal take on the Gallipoli legend.
The Archibald Prize finalist's latest work, Diggers 1915, was purchased by Bundeena RSL Club to hang in the lobby when the club reopens following its devastating fire earlier this year. http://www.theleader.com.au/story/2878470/bundeena-rsl-blaze-the-community-will-rally-again/
Shen based the work on a historic photograph on the cover of the book Gallipoli 1915, by Richard Reid, showing a line-up of unknown Diggers.
He added another Digger, whose name has survived, Alan Huthwaite, of the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment, who served in Gallipoli in 1915 and died in Egypt in 1917, aged 50.
Shen submitted the painting to the recent Bundeena Maianbar Art of Living Festival art show.
Club president Lynn Wootten saw the work and bought it to hang in the new club.
"It's by our local artist and we didn't want it to go out of Bundeena but have it for our brand new club," she said.
The rules of the exhibition are that the works are for sale but Mr Shen said "if it didn't sell I was going to donate it to the club".
Following the purchase of the work, Shen donated another painting to the club that he did of a World War I Digger.
The work is called Mates.
Shen is known for his paintings of Pope Francis, Princess Mary and former Australian prime minister John Howard.
"I am a history painter but this my first work of Australian soldiers," he said.
He wanted to make the painting look like it was taken from life and not a photograph.
"I tried to keep the moment that the photograph caught but I wanted to catch the colours of the battlefield and bring people back to that time," he said.
He said he understood something of what the soldiers faced through the experiences of a family member.
"My father-in-law, Professor Hongxing Wang, served in WWII as an engineer in the Chinese air force," he said.
"He still lives in Beijing and turns 100 in September.
"We took him to the Anzac Day march when he visited in 1996. He was very much moved."
Shen said he was happy his work would hang in the refurbished Bundeena RSL Club when it reopened. "It is my club," he said.
