Golden Scars - Charcoal and conte crayons on paper

This triptych, reflects Danny’s mental health journey through three symbolic scenes. Inspired heavily by Danny’s own creative vision.
In the first, the vase is whole, the fire glows, and the rocking chair in the painting above the mantle faces outward, an image of strength, balance, and belonging.
The second reveals fracture: the vase shattered, the fire not built, the rocking chair turned to the wall. It captures the weight of dark isolation, mental instability and the absence of motivation.
In the third, healing takes form. The vase is repaired with kintsugi (traditional Japanese art of restoring pottery with gold) and filled with golden wattle, symbolising resilience and a nod to military service. The fire alive again, the chair faces forward, and the scars gleam with pride, reminders that even in brokenness, with time, life endures.

Danny Jeffery dedicated 35 years to the Royal Australian Air Force, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Starting out as an aircraft mechanic, he later became a flight engineer on Caribou aircraft, flying countless humanitarian missions across the Pacific. His career also took him into operational deployments, including East Timor, the Middle East, and Afghanistan, where the toll of service left lasting scars, both physical and unseen.

When the time came to discharge, the change was brutal in its simplicity. One Friday he was still serving; by Monday, he wasn’t. “There was no ceremony,” Danny recalls. “Just gone.” That Monday marked not only the end of his career but the start of an identity crisis. For decades, life had been structured around rank, duty, and routine. Without them, he found himself asking the same questions many veterans face: Who am I now?
The first steps forward came through sport. Invictus Games gave him a platform as both an athlete and a coach, and wheelchair tennis soon became more than competition, it was rehabilitation. He trained daily, set himself goals, and climbed into the world’s top 150. Later, injuries pushed him to step back from elite competition, but he refused to leave the arena. Rugby league and AFL opened new doors, first as a player and then as a coach. Guiding teams, mentoring younger athletes, and rediscovering leadership gave him the same camaraderie he had once known in uniform.
Yet even as sport rebuilt part of his life, Danny confronted suicide in 2017–2018. The weight of transition, compounded by mental health struggles, brought him to the edge three times. He speaks about it candidly, not for shock, but because honesty saves lives. “I didn’t come home missing a limb,” he explains. “I came home missing a part of me.”
Out of that darkness came a new purpose. Today, Danny works in suicide prevention and mental health, combining his professional role in a major Sydney hospital with volunteer and advisory work at the national level. He advocates for change in policy, but just as importantly, he sits with people in their worst moments and offers lived experience as proof that survival is possible.
Danny often describes his journey with the image of three vases: one perfect, one smashed, and one glued back together. The rebuilt vase is scarred, but it holds water. It still holds flowers. “I’m not the same,” he says, “but I like this man. He still functions. He has purpose.”
From aircraft mechanic to engineer, from athlete to coach, from veteran to advocate, Danny Jeffery’s story is a reminder that while service ends, purpose does not.