When Saif Shamkhi was in the navy, he would draw with a grease pencil in a standard issue notebook to while away hours spent on the bridge, looking out to sea.

Now his piece Pusser Post Resolute hangs in an exhibition at Parliament House alongside works by other Australian artists who are also veterans including Ian Fairweather, Albert Tucker and Guy Warren.

The exhibition, From War, has been curated by the Australian National Veterans Arts Museum, drawing on its collection and works held by Parliament House.

Shamkhi, a native Arabic speaker, was part of a team that had the first contact with asylum-seeker boats in Operation Resolute. It wasn’t what he had trained for as an electronics technician.

"You have all the training in the world, people role-playing and stuff, but it’s not the same. People crying and vomiting and kids - you get emotionally attached even though you try not to," he said.

His piece Pusser Post Resolute shows a man sinking beneath the water, into a vast and vividly blue ocean. A pusser, or purser, was originally officer on the ship in charge of money and supplies, but has come to mean any navy officer.

Shamkhi said it represented the feelings of sailors after the operation, which he felt was the forgotten operation because sailors aren’t offered support.

He said the painting showed the feeling of drowning when there is a lack of support.

"Like you’ve been let down by your chain of command, you’ve been let down by the Navy and [the Department of Veterans’ Affairs]. If you have any issues, it’s not their problem."

Shamkhi said he was honoured to have his painting exhibited alongside some of Australia’s pre-eminent veterans.

"I painted this painting because it was a personal emotion of mine that was just out there. I didn’t think of it as art, let alone to think someone would appreciate it, let alone someone would appreciate it enough to put it in a gallery," he said.

Like Shamkhi, Barham Ferguson also spent hours working in a standard-issue notebook when stationed with the Australian army at Bougainville in 1997. But rather than sketching, Ferguson worked on poetry.

"We’d come home at about 10 o’clock at night when everything was done and we’d sit on the balcony of the local house … little army notebook in hand and scribbly pen and if [the poems] turned up, they turned up," he said.

Ferguson, who is an Australian National Veterans Arts Museum ambassador, might have to sit on a poem for a long time, but they come quickly when they’ve formed in his mind.

"I think the longest I’ve spent on one is around 15 minutes," he said.

"I did [a poem] for an Irishman in Lebanon who was there when the UN soldiers were killed in the 2006 war. Four of them died, he was supposed to be with them, and he ended up being the first person to go and identify them."

After three hours of listening, it took two weeks for the poem to appear.

"There it was, and again, five minutes," Ferguson said.

A selection of Ferguson’s poetry is displayed on the wall as part of the From War exhibition.

The Parliament House Art Collection has also acquired 100 contemporary artworks that reflect on the experience and legacy of Australians at war as part of Anzac centenary commemorations, which feature in Lest We Forget, hung alongside the veterans' works.

The assistant director of art collections and exhibitions at Parliament House, Samantha Pollock, said the display featured artists reflecting on Australians’ unique experiences of war.

"It’s quite a beautiful exhibition. Many of the artists were part of programs where they went and visited the Gallipoli Peninsula, others went to France," she said. Among the artists included are Trent Parke, Brian Robinson and Pauletta Kerinauia.

The chairman and director of the Australian National Veterans Arts Museum, Mark Johnston, who also served in Bougainville, said art was an important part of supporting and improving the well-being of veterans, even when veterans don’t think they have a creative bone in their body.

"One of the veteran artists came to the program in a hospital a number of years ago, that was his first engagement [with art]. He was very hesitant," he said. Since then he has staged a solo exhibition in Warrnambool and one of his paintings has hung in Senator Derryn Hinch’s office.

The museum is trying to secure the former Repatriation Commission Outpatient Clinic on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, which was opened in 1937 to support World War I veterans. The building is owned by the Defence Force but Johnston said it would be the perfect home for a permanent veterans’ art museum.

"Art is the tool, but well-being is the outcome," Johnston said.