The Peoria Art Guild is currently hosting “Peter Ahart, React to Contact.” The gallery is filled with colorful mixed media paintings which vibrate with an intensity founded in experience. Ahart’s direct use of materials, especially repurposed cardboard and mis-tint paints are filled with strong lines against torn and cut edges of materials as diverse as found imagery and reused paintings. He uses everyday materials to describe his first hand experience of the intensity of military engagement in the theater of war paired with the rigor and discipline of service, commitment to family and trust in God.
As an active-duty soldier serving in the National Guard for nearly 20 years, Ahart has parachuted into Iraq during three combat deployments, traveled to Holland, Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Kuwait, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar for deployments and training missions. He currently works as an Army Instructor developing and teaching basic emergency medical skills used on the battlefront. All of these experiences linger as indelible imagery.
Ahart has explored the themes of veteran mental health and the psycho-social effects of service in floor to ceiling large scale installations, singular works and three-dimensional pieces. His work at first glance is brightly colored line and form, but upon deeper inspection, the painted and glued, re-torn and reconfigured forms create an expansive sense of action and expression veering past aggressive violence toward a strong confirmation of immediacy and split-second decision-making.
He describes “your 6” — the interaction of military personnel in protecting each other — front and back, above and below, side to side. This sense of three dimensions enters all of his work, bringing the viewer into an arena of identifiable image and word while exposing their distortions. We witness the refuse and mangled remains of potential and actual devastation. Ahart shares with us how identity and ego are impacted by the physicality of inner and outer conflict.
Our culture has grown since the days of Vietnam veterans returning to a numb populace and non-acknowledged service, perpetuating the trauma of war. Today we are engaging in more open dialogue about the effects of confronting aggression and Post Traumatic Stress. One sees in Ahart’s work the spark that must be ignited in a moment while engaging what is beyond one’s control, the challenge to stay sane, to play one’s part in a split second. His strong visual statements exemplify this as image and process.
Ahart brings a particularly rooted view, one that doesn’t confront and jar and say, “Look at me, look what I’ve been through,” but grounds the viewer into an empathetic relationship within the depth of field and complexity of image. Since earning his MFA, Ahart has reached into his community working with art processes to bring the joy of communication though materials, the use of color and form into a new community. He and his wife Eliza recently participated in making artist trading cards for World Collage Day at The Center for Creativity & Community in Lincoln. He continues to cultivate his skill in reaching out to unlock what is hidden within.
Ahart’s current exhibition is but a small part of his larger work, a gallery show full of Intersecting and overlaying lines, strategizing routes and access points, impactful words and also those nearly invisible, fading into a seeming mass of misdirection. We are invited to experience his strong spiritual intent and pledge to engage in our own inner battles, to find solace and release from the tyranny of conflict, internal and external. Ahart builds joy in color and form without the slightest hint of sentimentality and offers a pathway and a practice toward peace.