These works were made as a result of a visit to Turin. Though I was on an architectural tour of modernism there, I was struck by the vast ceiling painting in the royal palace of the Battle of St Quentin, by the Renaissance painter Palma. I noticed one small detail in particular, a wicker wall that was used by troops to defend themselves, presumably mobile. The way their helmets and halberds shone darkly above it, and the resultant contrast with the ochres and yellows of the wicker, was almost agricultural. The pendant to the small painting influenced by this scene is an imagined, metaphorical symbol of the peace the comes after war, playing with the famous phrase of swords being beaten into plowshares. Or sickles, in this instance.

Miroslav Pomichal studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, and Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, in public and private galleries as well as experimental spaces. He works in Velka Lehota, Sherborne, and London.