Tollef Runquist received his B.A. in Studio Art from Dickinson College in 2002. Since then he has been continuing his education through painting and other mediums. He lives and works in Searsport, Maine. He has had solo exhibitions at Taylor Gallery, Meriden, NH; Ober Gallery, Kent, CT; and OK Harris, New York, NY; among others. Runquist looks at a wide range of artists as inspiration including Richard Diebenkorn, Monet, De Kooning, Gauguin, Bonnard, Rothko, Sargent, Gordon Grant, Gerhard Richter, Hopper, Homer, Klimt and Egon Schiele.

Runquist states, “Painting for me is an undertaking of appreciation and inquiry. It is a means by which to engage the beauty and mystery of visual experience in an ongoing dialogue. This is a widening puzzle; as I partake in this conversation, it continually refreshes itself, revealing unexpected angles and new understanding. I feel no particular loyalty to realism or my own past work. I set to draw out a particular vision as long as my experience with it is visceral, attentive and useful. I try to encapsulate the fullness of my experience of a moment; weight and stillness, burning edges, massive calm. These move me towards a particular subject, I try to paint and honor them, and then move on.”