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95-015 "In the End, the Flowers Won"
1995, acrylic on illustration board

This almost looks to be the sort of painting I have sworn off of: a purely scenic and very tranquil landscape devoid of any darker or satirical content. By all means, enjoy the tropical waterfall and flowers...but your inspection may begin to reveal shapes within and beneath the flora. What seems a tree trunk jutting out at right is oddly regular - in fact, it is made of steel. Following it into the brush, we drop our eyes down to discover rusted metal treads; this is - or was - a tank. Myriad clumps all around us are actually ammunition cases, helmets, rifles, and more sobering still, a stake driven into the ground with a helmet on it...a grave. This tropic paradise was once a battlefield, but the passions of yesterday have been conquered by the patient vines and flowers. As in so many facets of our lives, the heat of battle will eventually give way to the larger truth. Which men were victorious here? Does it matter? What were they fighting about? Nature did not much care, and in the end, the flowers won.

Chris Butler