EXHIBITION OPENING at Ladder Art Space in Melbourne

The Destruction of Innocence- Thomas Delohery

Melbourne, Australia – On August 8, 2025, acclaimed Irish-Australian artist Thomas Delohery will present his searing new solo exhibition, The Destruction of Innocence, at Ladder Art Space in Melbourne. This powerful series confronts the devastating global crisis of child soldiers—over 300,000 children exploited annually in conflicts around the world.

The exhibition will be officially opened by Dr. Peg LeVine, a Medical Anthropologist, Clinical and Eco-Psychologist, and internationally respected scholar of genocide and mass violence. Dr. LeVine is also a sculptor (Art as Dissent), author, and Director of the Classic Morita Centre. Her work in trauma-responsive education and cross-cultural healing brings a powerful contextual voice to the launch.

Delohery, known for his deeply researched Holocaust-themed work, now turns his lens to the plight of children forced into warfare. With blindfolded figures rendered in a recurring palette of secondary colours, and placed against abstract, emotionally ruptured environments, the series refuses to let viewers look away. The blindfolds serve both to protect the children’s identities and symbolically shield them from the horrors they are forced to witness.

“These are children who should have been protected,” says Delohery. “Instead, they are manipulated, used, and discarded. This exhibition seeks to reframe the way we see them—not as militants, but as children first.”

The Destruction of Innocence arrives at a moment when international monitoring bodies report increased recruitment of children in armed conflicts, and a growing recognition that 40% of these child soldiers are girls—often subjected to severe gender-based violence.

Each work in the exhibition measures 121.92 cm by 91.44 cm (48″ x 36″) and is created using acrylic and oil pastel on canvas. The pieces act as visual testimonies—challenging, confronting, and honoring the lost childhoods of the world’s most vulnerable.

Delohery’s exhibitions have toured globally and are often opened by cultural and survivor voices. With decades of practice rooted in ethical witness, this latest series stands as both indictment and invitation—urging viewers to engage with one of the most urgent human rights issues of our time.