VFP Artist, Mark Runge to Display his Collection, Peace is Patriotic: A Soldier’s (mis)Remembrances, in March

February 17, 2016

“Peace is Patriotic: A Soldier’s (mis)Remembrances” is a collection of drawings and sculptures by Mark Runge, who expresses his memories, or mis-remembrances, through his artwork. This body of work encompasses pieces from the last 8 years. Several pieces in Runge’s exhibit were created using gunpowder and pyrography. He said he began drawing with gunpowder around 2005, when he was teaching at a small college in Florida. Several students were veterans, and they decided to have a show about their wartime experiences.

Runge’s art training found its way through community colleges, the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and the University of South Florida’s MFA program. Runge currently makes art in Maryville, TN, where he continues to experiment with a variety of media to express his ideas, including making hollow body, stringed instruments.

The collection will be on display

March 1 -25, 2016
Clayton Center for the Arts' DENSO Gallery
502 E Lamar Alexander Pkwy
Maryville, TN 37804

An artist reception will be held in the gallery on Fri., March 25 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. A spoken-word performance will begin at 7 p.m. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Artist Statement:

Peace is Patriotic: A Soldier’s (mis)Remembrances

About the same time every year–I begin to have nightmares. By the time Val wakes me up, I am aware that I have been dreaming, but I can’t do anything to stop myself. Val saves me. The echo of my screams remain in my head, and I must live the day after my nightmares with the memory, or maybe residue, of the desert life that haunts my senses still. Yet memories of childhood wargames commingle with memories of adulthood wartime. Like the nightmares, memories and realities fade slowly, if at all. I cannot always verbalize this struggle, but it shows up in my work. Toys stand in for those who live in my memories–myself included. The burning of images on paper is my attempt to share with the viewer my recollection of burned flesh, and there is nothing like the smell of burning flesh. The smell enters your nose, but it lives on in your mouth as a gritty and acrid taste. I brushed my teeth a lot while I served in the Iraq. I was there for only six months and one day, but I still feel as if I was there for a lifetime. I lived and died there, but not like the burning bodies. They would never go home, or, maybe they already were home, where they became the residue of my war in the desert.

For more information about the collection, click here.

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Tags: artist, Mark Runge