When Ben Quilty returned from Afghanistan after a stint there as an official war artist in 2011, he realised that the trauma of the battlefield lingered well beyond the war-torn country, where he had listened to young men talk about their wives, girlfriends and families back home.

"I realised that the story was so much more than just service, it was about how it affected the community," he said.

So when the director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, commissioned him to create a series of portraits of people whose loved ones had been killed or suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, he immediately got to work.

The result, unveiled on Tuesday, is a haunting trio of large-scale portraits showing the internal, private and almost indescribable pain of three very different women.

On hand to see their portraits revealed, Leesa Kwok, Elvi Wood and Elle-Lou Diddums all spoke of the surreal and daunting experience of standing still in Quilty's studio while he delved into their private emotions.

Ms Diddums was just 15 when her father, Sergeant Blaine Diddams of the Special Air Service Regiment, was killed in Afghanistan in 2012.

Quilty has depicted her in a hunched and defensive pose, one that she said perfectly encapsulated her emotions.

"He's not actually looking at you, Ben was looking through you and getting at that emotion," Ms Diddums said.

"It was very difficult, obviously, to portray that while standing there, but I think because he's such an easy-going person, he gets the story out of you. He really portrays what I was going through when I was 15 and had just lost my father. It took four years for me to be comfortable enough to tell him how I felt during that time and my grief and depression and whatever comes along with grief, and that really is what the portrait displays, basically."

For Ms Wood, the results of her time in the studio came as a pleasant surprise.

Her husband, Sergeant Brett Wood, was killed by an improvised explosive device while on his third tour of Afghanistan in 2011.

Quilty has depicted her standing on a stage, as a reference to her very public experience of grieving, and the discomfort she felt at having high-profile politicians attend her husband's funeral.

"The time that I stood there in front of him, we actually laughed and joked the whole time, so it blows my mind that that's what he actually saw," she said.

"His ability to look inside you and see what you try and hide from the world is truly remarkable."

For Leesa Kwok, who met her husband James Tanner after he'd been discharged from the army, the struggle of living with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder is one not enough people talk about.

"I found myself in the space simply because I asked for help, because so many people are out there doing what I'm doing and what my children are doing, and that's living with the after-effects of physical and mental injuries from recent service, particularly in the middle east," she said.

Quilty has depicted her standing confidently on a black background, one that references the "encompassing, overwhelming feeling" of dealing with her husband's trauma.

The Longest War, by Ben Quilty, is now on display at the Australian War Memorial.