Inspiration for the text in my work comes from early exposure to the bombastic narratives of comic books and the constant stream of text on screens—video games, dialogue boxes, notifications. I’m drawn to the patina of time on street posters and the way meaning erodes or becomes opaque with age and weather. That disjunction between perception and intended meaning fascinates me. It works as a kind of active meditation—a question worth lingering on, a challenge to the viewer to consider what it truly means to perceive.
Tollef Runquist, Popsicle, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
Tollef Runquist, Me and My Ashes, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
Tollef Runquist, Route to School, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
When I bring text into a painting, it’s rarely there to tell you something directly. It’s more like placing a small obstacle in the visual field—something that interrupts the usual flow of looking and makes you pause. Sometimes the text lines up with the image and reinforces what’s happening visually. Other times it cuts against it, contradicts it, or behaves like a stutter. I like when a word looks like it belongs but feels wrong, or when it feels right but looks wrong. That tension interests me. And because my process involves layering, repainting, and burying earlier decisions, some words remain only as ghosts—a kind of archaeological record of my thought process. Through erasure and repainting, phrases become relics of earlier layers, traces severed from their original meaning, private to me alone.
I often think of these text fragments as behaving a bit like koans in the way they refuse to resolve. They don’t point you toward a definitive interpretation. They don’t explain themselves. Instead, they invite the viewer to notice their own reflex for explanation, for narrative, for the comfort of the known. I’m fascinated by that reaching. The viewer ends up watching their own mind at work, and that becomes part of the experience.
Tollef Runquist, Down the Center, acrylic on paper, 12 x 16 in.
Tollef Runquist, Pick Pink, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
There’s something strangely intimate about the moment when meaning has broken down but still hints that it once existed. I find that incredibly compelling. It reminds me that perception isn’t just about what’s in front of us; it’s also about what we imagine into the gaps.
Tollef Runquist, Akimbo, acrylic on paper, 19 x 20 in.
Sometimes I use visual images to place words in people’s heads, and sometimes I do the reverse—I use a word or phrase to finish a visual sentence, or a visual cue to resolve a written phrase. At times they act like punchlines or small winks and nods. There’s a kind of synesthesia that happens here, creating unexpected connections or revealing the viewer’s own associations. I find that exchange endlessly interesting.
Tollef Runquist, Art Produce, acrylic on paper, 12 x 12 in.
Tollef Runquist, Top Dream, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
And sometimes the associations are straightforward. They act as emphasis or echo—the way text in a commercial flyer insists “buy now!,” or the way an action font in a comic book amplifies a superhero’s punch in a splash page.
Tollef Runquist, Untitled (various works), acrylic on cardboard, varied sizes.
Tollef Runquist, Vendor, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 in.
Words carry rhythm and cadence—short, clipped sounds or long, rolling ones. Paint has its own music too: the pace of a brushstroke, the weight of a line, the speed of a gesture. When I place text inside an image, I’m thinking about how the rhythm of the word sits within the rhythm of the painting. A phrase might harmonize with a painted passage, or it might arrive as a discordant insert—a false flag nudging the viewer toward an unexpected or overly obvious association. Sometimes the words and the image push against each other. Sometimes I use a phrase as a kind of tongue-in-cheek provocation, a decoy—a false signal that sets up an expectation the painting refuses to meet. I enjoy that twist, that moment when the viewer realizes their mind has followed a path the painting never promised.
Tollef Runquist, U hold, acrylic on paper, 12 x 16 in.
A lot of what I do is about encouraging a gentle kind of uncertainty. Not because something is hidden, but because the painting asks the viewer to slow down and notice the moment of perception itself. That moment is slippery—never as stable or straightforward as we assume. The painting becomes more than an object; it becomes a conduit for awareness, reflecting not only what is seen but also the gaze that sees it. In that slippery in-between, there’s room for curiosity, for play, for a small personal awakening that doesn’t need to announce itself. In that space, meaning doesn’t have to be fixed or final. It can simply be a shared moment of attention—open, shifting, and alive.
Image at top: Tollef Runquist, U See Other, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.