Bob Kerr: Number 1 Field Punishment

 

 

 

 

This is a powerful, narrative exhibition detailing one of the dark stories of New Zealand's involvement in World War I and specifically the treatment Archibald Baxter (the father of James K Baxter) experienced as a conscientious objector.

Each painting is accompanied by a quotation from his autobiogrpahy, We Will Not Cease ..., a book long regarded as one of the classics of its genre.

Bob Kerr is a Wellington-based artitst, author and illustrator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Kerr recreates key events, participants and places. He begins with The Farm, at Brighton, south of Dunedin (where Baxter was arrested) and then to The Waitemata, the ship which took him (and other objectors) to the war front.

At the front trenches, The Duckwalk - a chaotic assemblage of planks - lead out into no-man's land and long this path the objectors were daily dragged or marched then tied to poles and abandoned to the torment of random fate as bullets and bombs bounced between opposing armies.