Witness Art

Lance Corporal Tyler Huffman, McGuire VA Hospital, Richmond, Virginia

Corporal Zach Stinson (now Sergeant), McGuire VA Hospital, Richmond, Virginia

Lance Corporal Kyle Carpenter, McGuire VA Hospital, Richmond, Virginia

The primary criteria for membership in the International Society of War Artists is very simple: the artist must have gone to war and created art. The type of art created is not a determining factor. War art is witness art.

With the Joe Bonham Project we are asking civilian artists back home to go and do art of our wounded warriors; those battle-wounded service members who are still in the fight. We, as artists, can be a visual voice speaking of their courage and sacrifice. We can keep these fellow Americans visible and their experiences viable.

Witness art is reportage art with a poetic voice. The artist and the time spent creating cannot be distilled out of the images. With the Joe Bonham Project we are striving to fashion images at once journalistic and profoundly personal.

Our aim is to be neither pro-war or anti-war. We are not here to politicize the service members we are portraying. We are here to humanize them and give them a presence beyond the walls of their hospital rooms and therapeutic clinics.