Ken Howard, R.A. (b. 1932)

The artist discusses the present work in a documentary film The Way I See It, produced in 2011 by David Austin and Neale Worley, 'I had this idea about man's inhumanity to man, the terrible things that men do to each other and yet I didn't have a concept to begin with and how I could make it visually come over, rather than verbally or written. And the theme for the Summer Exhibition [Royal Academy, 2010] is 'Raw' but I suddenly realised that 'raw' was 'war' spelt backwards and it was at that time that I was beginning to be able to see how I could get this idea down ... I don't want this to be offensive to any individuals but everyone of those 130,000,000 deaths must have caused families to grieve and suffer. I love the idea of art being about beauty but I also like it to be about something to make people think about the other aspects of life'.