Professional Courtesy

Professional Courtesy

“Professional Courtesy” reflects a simple operational reality: not every threat can be prevented. Security measures can fail. Procedures have their limitations. And sometimes, despite every warning and every opportunity to make a different choice, someone deliberately continues moving in your direction.

This painting is not about anger, heroism or violence for violence's sake. It is about responsibility. In the course of my work, I maintain an exceptionally high willingness to apply proportionate force when necessary to accomplish the task, but I cannot be angry with an adversary I do not know. He is not a personal enemy. At that moment, he is merely the source of a threat that must be dealt with appropriately.

In operational environments, violence is not an emotion, but a means. Threats are assessed, decisions are made and action is taken. Sometimes a situation ends without violence. Sometimes it does not. The ultimate objective, however, always remains the same: to ensure that you and those for whom you are responsible return home safely.

“Professional Courtesy” refers, with a certain irony, to the mutual understanding that exists within worlds in which people consciously accept risk. Everyone makes their own choices and ultimately bears the consequences of those choices. Sometimes that means that two people meet at precisely the wrong moment.

There is a significant difference between how violence is experienced inside and outside operational environments. Outside this world, it is often regarded as something exceptional, dramatic or traumatic. Within operational environments, it is first and foremost a responsibility. When all other possibilities have been exhausted, there is sometimes only one appropriate response remaining. No more and no less.

After that, the day goes on.

This work was created on canvas using acrylic paint applied with sand and rubble collected in Afghanistan, 9 mm projectiles that once struck me, my combat knife, and circular patterns applied with the charging cable of my Motorola radio as a symbol of equipment, communication, co-ordination and operational interdependence. I use real operational materials to leave something of myself behind in the canvas and to give the artwork the soul it deserves.

Dimensions 75 X 55 cm on canvas

This original artwork is individually registered in The Operational Art Archive and is supplied with a Certificate of Authenticity & Provenance. Individually signed by the artist (P2M).