By: James Groleau

Medium: 5 plate color mezzotints  
Image Size: 8 x 8 inches
Edition Size: 35
Framed

Militarismus is from James Groleau’s Flowers of Turbulence, a series based on nineteenth-century daguerreotype portraits of children, reimagined through the lens of modern conflict. A child faces the viewer with a fixed, solemn gaze, her flushed cheeks and fragile body rendered with unsettling vulnerability.

Behind her, a ceremonial staff emits a thin trail of smoke, introducing the presence of militarism as something inherited rather than chosen. Groleau contrasts the innocence of the child with symbols of authority and violence, suggesting how ideologies are quietly imposed long before they are understood.