Faces of War at Michener Museum

Faces of war:
A farewell to blood-and-guts

ANNE R. FABBRI

The faces of war, portrayed in two exhibitions at the Michener Museum in Doylestown, render stereotypical images obsolete. They change our vision and expectations. Instead of the blood-and-guts type of war imagery we’ve become inured to, “Fire and Ice” depicts scenes of daily life in the Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan by Michael Fay, 53, one of only two combat artists in that unit. Counterbalancing this ordinariness of existence under extraordinary circumstances, “Soldier,” Suzanne Opton’s portrait studies of the men and women who’ve returned from such duty, startle the viewer with their unblinking focus on faces. They confront us, discomfiting, asking questions we cannot answer.

On view in adjacent galleries, these two exhibitions give us a sense of what it’s like to be there in that war zone; then they personalize it by close-ups of the young people who’ve worn those uniforms and manned the posts and have returned. It’s not blood and guts; it’s humanity on view.

“I was sort of hoping there were no snipers,” commented Michael Fay, after finishing a sketch. A Marine reservist and native of Allentown, Pa., Fay is part of the Marine Corps Combat Art Program that was launched officially in World War II. He has served two tours each in Afghanistan and Iraq. Working in watercolors and pencil, he has fashioned paintings and drawings that portray real people at their posts. I liked the fact that he identified them by name on each individual work and elaborated on the circumstances in the accompanying blurb.

Young but no longer youthful

The greatest, most insightful work in both exhibitions is the drawn portrait of Lance Corporal N. G. Ciccone on the entrance wall of the “Fire and Ice” exhibition. Lines of fatigue, deepened by a sense of unmitigated sorrow, define the corporal’s features, shoulders drooping from an unseen weight. He’s young in chronological years but no longer youthful. According to the description, Ciccone was part of “Gilligan’s Patrol” on a 12-hour mission that turned into a nine-day ordeal. That face— something I didn’t expect to see in what I would glibly call “Official Art” rather than truth— remains etched in my mind.

Other paintings depict Marines on patrol, picking their way across a minefield, or on guard duty, keeping watch over fellow Marines performing their routine jobs or engaging in peaceful interactions with the natives. Not shown, of course, is the violent ransacking of villagers’ houses or the unwarranted death and destruction caused by soldiers’ fears of covert enemy action.

Numb to the touch

Suzanne Opton’s 18 photographs of military men and women at Fort Drum, N.Y., shortly after they returned from at least 100 days of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, startle the viewer. Faces cupped in hands make us uneasy. Where is the whole body? What does this mean?

Opton, a New York based artist, used a large-format 4 x 5 view camera to photograph veterans, identifying them by name plus days of service overseas. Notably numb to the touch of hands, they look out of the silver gelatin picture directly at us with the unblinking gaze of a child: young, vulnerable, lost in their own memories.

Disembodied heads, distorting nature

She then asked each soldier to lay his or her head on a table and photographed them in stark, brilliant color printed on 32 x 40-inch sheets. Four of these large-format works in color create a disturbing dissonance with the rest of the monochromatic portraits. Disembodied heads distort nature. What do they mean? What are they doing there?

If you’re steeped in art history, you recall Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath. Recent history intrudes with terrorist-type capture and assassinations. These faces seem deliberately devoid of all emotion or references. They are because they are. It becomes art as object.

Learning to confront violence

Opton’s 14 silver gelatin portraits of the veterans, in a familiar 20 x 16-inch print, captured more of each person’s individuality. Only the older soldier, Benson– 368 days in Iraq, seems to have learned how to confront violence and deal with it in a matter-of-fact manner. Others, such as Soldier: Deltaph– 382 days in Iraq, and Soldier: Wright– 366 days in Iraq, have turned inward, revealing their youthful vulnerability.

These are studies of men and women who haven’t yet donned the mask of conformity expected in our daily existence. Their private battles will become hidden from the outside world so that their future portraits will no longer reveal the faces of, in Opton’s words, “someone who has seen something unforgettable.” She has turned contemporary tragedy into art.