[Opening / Closing]
Selections from Combat Paper

About This Event

A NEW EXHIBITION CURATED BY ARTIST JASON HUGHES AT THE STAMP GALLERY
Opening Reception and Gallery Talk: Friday, November 1, 2012 5-8pm
Veterans Week Kick-off Reception will be held on November 5, 2-5PM

COLLEGE PARK—MD The Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland College Park will be presenting their new exhibit Selections from Combat Paper. The exhibition is open to the public November 1 through December 15, 2012 with an opening reception and gallery talk with artists, Thursday, November 1st, 2012 from 5-8pm. This exhibition is made up of eleven artists with work featured in the Combat Paper collection, a project that utilizes art making workshops to assist veterans in reconciling their experiences of warfare and sharing these experiences to civilians back home. Combat Paper is a national project based out of art studios all over the United States. The project has travelled abroad to Canada and the United Kingdom and is produced through a collaboration between artists, art collectors, academic institutions, and veterans.

Combat Paper provides papermaking workshops where veterans use their uniforms worn in combat, cut them up and beat them until they resemble sheets of paper. Following this transformative process, veterans use the paper to express their individual stories and experiences in warfare. This process of art making reflects both anger of the past and hope for the future.

Veterans participating in the Combat Paper Project come from across the United States. The Stamp Gallery will be showcasing works by Chris Arendt (Army/ National Guard), Jesse Albrecht (Army/National Guard), Margaret Mahan (Civilian), Drew Matott (Civilian), John La Falce (Civilian), Robynn Murray (Army), Jose Soto, Anthony and Faith Sgroi (Navy), Margaret Mahan (Civilian), and Matt Lunn (Marines).

The Stamp Gallery is dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary art with an emphasis on the work of emerging and mid-career artists. The gallery supports contemporary art that is challenging and/or academically engaging and that addresses broad community and social issues. Through meaningful exhibitions and programming, the gallery offers the University community an outside-of-the-classroom experiential learning opportunity. The gallery space can be used as a laboratory for emerging artists and curators to experiment and work through their ideas, emphasizing the importance of the process to contemporary artistic practice. The gallery serves the public by providing exhibitions of social responsibility and artistic substance, as well as by offering an educational forum in which dialogue between artist and viewer and art and community is encouraged.
The Stamp Gallery is located on the first floor of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union-Center for Campus Life, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The gallery is free and open to the public Mondays-Thursdays 10:00AM-8:00PM; Fridays 10:00AM-6:00PM; and Saturdays 11:00AM-5:00PM. For more information about the exhibition and the program log on to http://thestamp.umd.edyu/gallery or contact the gallery at 301-314-8493 or stampgallery@umd.edu