War veteran paints his way out of a dark place
A war veteran who turned to art to manage his trauma now hopes to make a career out of his passion and will paint a mural for a veterans support group.
War veteran Sean Halfpenny turned to art therapy to help process his trauma and uncovered a talent that he now hopes to turn into a career.
After joining the Royal Australian Regiment in 2008 as an infantry soldier, Mr Halfpenny, 39, deployed to Afghanistan two years later and spent 10 months helping to train Afghan National Army personnel.
But after he returned home and was discharged in 2013, “it left a mark on me that I didn’t really know existed”.
“Eventually I identified that I felt guilty, like I should have done more for the people overseas, particularly kids,” he said.
“I was starting to have nightmares about my kids living that sort of life, and it just started absolutely killing me. I got into a pretty dark place.”
You might like
While taking part in a trauma recovery program at the Jamie Larcombe Centre in Adelaide, Mr Halfpenny met visual arts tutor Kaz Pedersen, who encouraged him to join the Military and Emergency Services Health Australia’s Veterans Art Program.
He had not painted since high school, but he soon discovered he had a talent and a passion for it.
“While painting, all the thoughts, all the distractions, everything that goes through my head, just started to vanish, I was so focused on what I’m doing,” he said.
One of his first works, titled Gentle Soldier, was based on a picture he took of a colleague applying a Band-Aid to a child while they were on patrol in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan in 2010.
Stay informed, daily
That painting, which was highly commended in the Napier Waller Art Prize, was displayed in Parliament House in Canberra and has been acquired by the Australian War Memorial for its permanent collection.
Halfpenny hopes to carve out a career as an artist and has been commissioned to paint a mural at the William Kibby VC Veterans Shed in Glenelg North.
It will feature the images of SA veterans, including Adelaide soldier William Kibby, who served with the 2/48th Battalion in WWII, and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroic actions at the second battle of El Alamein.
It will also include an image of Sapper Jamie Larcombe, who was killed in action in the Mirabad Valley in 2011, when Halfpenny was serving in Afghanistan.
The veterans’ group will receive almost $10,000 to fund the mural, and is among 55 organisations sharing $770,000 funding in the federal government’s 2024/25 Saluting Their Service Commemorative Grants Program.
Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh said the mural would help share the stories of veterans “and become a focal point for the community to understand the nature of that service”.
Other grants include $35,000 for the Australian Military Aviation History Association to create documentaries on the history of numbers 9 and 12 Squadrons, and $133,000 for the Wodonga RSL sub-branch to upgrade its cenotaph.
