In revisiting historical war painting from socialist realism to early twentieth-century war art by Australian George Lambert, Fred Leist and American John Singer Sergeant, I was taken by moments of tenderness embedded within scenes of violence: soldiers carrying the wounded, guiding the blind, holding one another upright. In this body of work, I replace those male protagonists with women.
The battlefield becomes a metaphor for the struggles women navigate daily: political, social, intimate. These figures do not conquer - they carry each other, they do not dominate - they support each other. Against a frame influenced by propaganda aesthetics inspired by the works of Käthe Kollwitz, Ernst Barlach and Otto Dix, both literal and metaphorical, their gestures of care become quite radical. This exhibition is not about glorifying conflict. It is about dismantling the myth of solitary resilience and honouring the sustaining force of solidarity, honouring the women who hold us when we fall."
Kathrin Longhurst, Artist Statement
Exhibition essay by Kate McAuley
When celebrated American poet, feminist theorist and social activist Audre Lorde said “without community there is no liberation,” she was referring to the systems of oppression, imposed by the Patriarchy, that isolate women from one another while highlighting why solidarity is essential to its downfall. It is this sentiment that runs throughout My Hand In Yours, Kathrin Longhurst’s latest exhibition for Flinders Lane Gallery, where the artist explores female solidarity, shared burden and the sustaining power of community.
Like much of Longhurst’s practice, the work draws on the visual language of war as metaphor for the emotional and psychological battles women continue to navigate within patriarchal structures. But where previous exhibitions centered around the solitary female protagonist, these paintings shift their focus towards collective strength - women supporting each other through moments of exhaustion, grief and survival.
Along with much of Longhurst’s earlier work, the paintings on display here are deeply informed by her childhood growing up in East Berlin during the Cold War. Surrounded by socialist realism, monuments and memorials commemorating conflict and political ideology, the artist developed an early understanding of how imagery can be used to shape collective identity and reinforce systems of power. These reflections were augmented alongside literary influences including Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, which jolted Longhurst back to her early life, and Kyra Geddes’ The Story Thief, the latter offering an Australian perspective on war, loss an dendurance.
Historical war painting also sits quietly behind the work. References to artists, including George Lambert and John Singer Sargent, can be felt in the multi-figure compositions and the physical relationships between bodies - figures carrying wounded companions, resting against one another, or moving together through uncertain terrain. Longhurst recasts these traditionally male battle scenes entirely with women, reframing warfare through the lens of female experience, friendship and concern.
Visually, the paintings move between fragility and force. The recurring reds feel urgent and symbolic, recalling propaganda, conflict and resistance, while deep blacks and industrial greys, echo the architecture and ideological weight of Longhurst’s East Berlin upbringing. Against these harder elements sit the figures themselves, rendered in luminous creamy skin tones that bring warmth, intimacy and vulnerability to the work.
Given the title, hands recur throughout the exhibition: clasped, supporting and reassuring. These small gestures become some of the most powerful moments, grounding the larger historical references in something deeply recognisable and human. It is this tenderness against systems designed to dehumanise and harden us that sits central to the theme.
My Hand In Yours is less concerned with resilience in the traditional sense than it is with connection. These paintings reject the idea of endurance as a solitary act. Instead, Longhurst offers something tender, but ultimately more powerful. It is the idea that survival is often found in community, in friendship, and in the people willing to carry us when we no longer have the strength to carry ourselves.
