ORIGINAL ARTWORK
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For more than two decades, BrandNet has commissioned original artworks to tell Australian military stories. These paintings became the source of limited-edition prints, medallions, collectables and gifts that found their way into thousands of Australian homes. The original paintings themselves were never sold. They have remained in the BrandNet Archives ever since.
Now, for the first time, the originals are being offered to collectors. Unlike the numbered editions that came after it, the original is not one of a limited edition. It is a true one of one. There is only one original, and once it is sold it leaves the BrandNet Archives and will never be available again.
Operation Slipper – In Service Against Terrorism is the original oil on canvas by Adelaide military and aviation artist Barry Spicer, commissioned to commemorate Australia’s longest conflict. It depicts a Mentoring Task Force patrol in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, in 2010: Australian soldiers moving through a village with an Explosive Detection Dog and Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles, set against the steep mountains of Uruzgan, with local children watching the soldiers pass.
Under Operation Slipper, approximately 34,500 ADF personnel served in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East Area of Operations between 2001 and the end of the operation on 31 December 2014. From 2006 the Australian effort concentrated in Uruzgan, operating from Tarin Kot and a network of patrol bases, and from 2010 the Mentoring Task Force combined combat operations with developing the Afghan National Army. The threat was persistent: insurgent attacks and improvised explosive devices meant even routine movement outside protected bases demanded constant vigilance. It is that reality the painting captures.
Spicer is known for close attention to military equipment and technical detail, and the painting rewards close viewing: the DPCU uniforms, combat body armour, load-carrying equipment and Australian small arms all locate the scene precisely in 2010. But its real subject is the patrol itself. The soldiers’ spacing, weapons and posture suggest movement rather than a staged portrait; the Bushmasters provide weight and protection; and the Explosive Detection Dog introduces a layer of tension, its work directed toward a danger that cannot be seen. The strength of the work lies in what it does not show. There is no explosion and no visible enemy, only the alertness of soldiers in a landscape where danger is always possible.
The original is the unique source work behind the Operation Slipper limited editions and has remained in the BrandNet Archives since the commission, a faithful record of the Australians who served in Afghanistan.
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