little soldiers 01+02, 2023/2025 (gallery view)
oil on Belgian linen
60 x 80 cm (23,6 x 31,5 inches)
little soldiers 01, 2023 (detail)
oil on Belgian linen
60 x 80 cm (23,6 x 31,5 inches)
little soldiers 01, 2023
oil on Belgian linen
60 x 80 cm (23,6 x 31,5 inches)
little soldiers 02, 2023
oil on Belgian linen
60 x 80 cm (23,6 x 31,5 inches)
little soldiers 02 (detail), 2025
oil on Belgian linen
100 x 150 cm (39,4 x 59 inches)
Little Soldiers is an unfinished series of paintings depicting toy soldiers at life size, confronting the viewer with a shift in scale and meaning.
What appears at first as a study of tiny objects reveals, on closer inspection, the imprint of an educational system in which play and discipline were deliberately intertwined.
The figures refer to toys produced in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), where Wehrerziehung (paramilitary instruction) (*1) integrated into the school curriculum was not an isolated practice but a systemic element of childhood. Training included lessons in shooting, exercises with hand grenades, and regular drills.
Each figure is rendered with attention toward the slight asymmetries and inaccuracies of its hand-painted surface. When enlarged to near-human dimensions, these details appear disproportionately present, displacing the original familiarity of the toy.
The uniformity of the motifs, such as rigid postures and standardized attributes, describes a state in which individuality is subordinated to collective ideals. The work doesn‘t narrate this process, but it does reveal its traces: the enforced camaraderie, the loss of autonomy, the gradual erosion of private identity in the name of public purpose
Little Soldiers attempts to avoid both nostalgia and accusation. It proposes a form of silent recognition that even the smallest figures carry history.
Technical note:
Each painting in the series is based on a plastic toy figure (approximately 8 cm in size) from the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), enlarged to human proportions. The original hand-painted irregularities of the toys (often imprecise, expressionistic) are preserved without correction.
The series is currently a work in progress.
Research sources:
1 Wehrerziehung in der DDR. (only in German)
In: Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia,
URL: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrerziehung#Wehrerziehung_in_der_DDR
sad toy soldier (NVA),
source unknown
paramilitary education in the former GDR,
source unknown
surprised toy soldier (NVA),
source: germantoys.eu