Conrad Atkinson

Internationally renowned artist Conrad Atkinson has been involved in the landmine issue for over 15 years and in 1997 was named official artist of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.   In March of 2003, in honor of the fifth anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty and as part of the Conrad Atkinson: Constantly Contesting exhibit at White Box Gallery in New York City, Atkinson donated four unique ceramic landmine sculptures to Adopt-A-Minefield.  The artwork was part of a raffle at the White Box Gallery and auctioned at AAM’s 2003 Los Angeles Benefit Gala.  The raffle and auction collectively raised $7,600 which was used to fund a Mobile Mine Action Team in Vietnam.

Artist’s Statement

Landmines are not only functional weapons of destruction that cost three dollars to make and three hundred to deactivate, but will continue to kill children at random for the next thousand years at the current cleanup rate.   They are also objects of political, economic and cultural significance, serving as metaphors for a variety of contemporary issue and ideologies.   Landmines represent the globalization of culture as much as the Golden Arches of McDonald’s.  We love our beautiful bombs: they defend our way of life.  By bringing these symbolic values into focus, I have tried to offer a different and more productive perspective on our propensity for creatively destroying each other.  From Goya to Guernica, from Roger Fenton to Don McCullin, artists have sought new, more effective ways to picture war and horror.  But the image of children with bandaged limbs and missing legs – like all images of human tragedy – produces only compassion fatigue when repeated several hundred times.  Rather than seeking to represent this horror literally, I have focused on its source.  We are imbricated with these weapons, ideologically, economically, and imaginatively.  In this sense, imagination has itself become a source of death and destruction.  Like Bob Dylan wrote on his guitar, “this weapon kills”.