Months Underground

Butler’s work focuses on the human angle of war - as he describes it: ‘I draw what happens on the fringes of atrocity’. His work is drawn in situ and later finished in watercolours. Butler provides context for all of his war drawings, which bring the human experience into these dehumanising situations, and documents the disruption to everyday lives. Using drawings allows the artist to make an emotional connection with the subjects, but maintain a graphic distance from the more brutal aspects of the record. Some of the people he sketched would not allow photographers to take images of them. His quick ‘unfinished’ graphic style gives the imagery an immediacy appropriate to the situation.