Of Love and War

Death leaves a paper trail, particularly when it is a direct result of war. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), however, is a more complex, unacknowledged war. This artwork reconstructs ‘letters from the trenches’, challenging the romanticisation of war’s impact on relationships.

IPV is a major health and welfare issue, predominantly affecting women and children. Defence families are at heightened risk, with the Royal Commission confirming that 45.5% of partners of veterans have experienced IPV.

After my veteran husband died, I revisited letters from our years of service. Re-reading them, I began to recognise patterns of coercive control. My relationship with the past changed, and by shredding the letters, I released the meanings I had once assigned to them.

Psychoanalyst John Bowlby describes ‘reorganisation’ as the final stage of bereavement, in which one accepts irreversible change while allowing for a positive ‘new normal’. I reinstated the letters by weaving. This slow, labour-intensive process became both restorative and transformative, reorganising my personal archive and my relationship with the past.

These woven, reorganised personal and national archives do not paper over the complexities of war and violence, but suggest that meaning, agency, and survival remain possible amid the vast ‘shreddedness’ of IPV and loss.

Of Love and War has received a Highly Commended in the 2026 Napier Waller Art Prize at the Australian War Memorial.

2024, 365 love letters with an army bag, 150 x 150 x 130 cm