John McDermott's exhibition aims at healing invisible wounds in UK

John's exhibition aims at healing invisible wounds
Express & Echo
ART is always very personal, both to the artist and the viewer, so to look at some of John McDermott's paintings makes for a slightly uneasy feeling of intrusion into his mind, as his work is about his experiences in — and after — conflict.

John studied art in Glasgow before joining the Royal Navy, where he was to spend the next 27 years before settling in Exeter. He has seen conflict from two angles — mainly from being on active duty in conflicts around the world, including the Falklands, the Gulf and Bosnia, but also as a "man in the middle" as a UN observer in Cambodia in the wake of the killing fields.

It is apt, then, that his exhibition at Exeter Castle, as part of the Exeter Festival, is entitled Aftermath; he hopes it will raise awareness of the terrible problem of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among servicemen and women.

John, himself a PTSD sufferer, is passionate about getting the message across to the public that there are servicemen who have been in conflict non-stop for ten years, from the first invasion of Afghanistan, and the difficulties many of them will subsequently face in assimilating back into civilian life. "This is twice as long as the Second World War lasted," he says.


"One of the big issues we have with war-related trauma is the stigma surrounding it. We are getting better at understanding mental health, but our people are going through life-changing situations almost daily.
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John McDermott exhibition aims at healing invisible wounds