Hogancamp's 'Resilience' on display in Kingston

On April 7, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was nearly-fatally beaten after a night out in Ulster County. Five men brutally assaulted Hogancamp outside of a bar in Kingston after he revealed to one of them that he liked cross-dressing. The men beat Hogancamp so badly that night that a passerby thought his body was a bag of garbage laying in the middle of the road at first; a mark across his forehead looked like it was made from the tracks of a car tire, but they were marks from the boot of his attackers as they repeatedly stomped on his skull.

After nine days in a coma and reconstructive surgery on his right eye, Hogancamp woke up thinking it was 1984 and had little memory of his previous life. He had to relearn how to walk, couldn’t remember members of his family, or that he was a divorced, or an alcoholic, or who those women’s shoes belonged to (they were his – and he later used the heels to regain his balance walking). And his right hand – his drawing hand – shook too much, rendering him unable to draw and paint the scale models he was working on before the attack. Janet and Mark Wikan of the now-closed J&Js Hobbies in Kingston “suggested he try the 12-inch 1:6 scale figures.”

Those figurines proved to be the creative outlet that gave Hogancamp a new life, one that was in his control. “Those guys don’t know what they took from me,” Hogancamp said. “I figured I’ll never get all those memories back, so I’ll just make new ones.”

Through Marwencol, the fictional town Hogancamp created and captured through the lens of his camera, Hogancamp uses figures to represent his friends and family, even his attackers as SS soldiers, to create a world all his own. Actor Steve Carell even portrayed Hogancamp in “Welcome to Marwen,” the 2018 Robert Zemeckis dramatic adaptation of the 2010 documentary “Marwencol.”

Beginning this week, never before seen work will be on display during “Mark Hogancamp: Resilience” at One Mile Gallery in Kingston. An opening reception with the artist will take place this Saturday, March 23 from 5-8pm. The exhibit runs through April 13, 2024, and by appointment. Special, uneditioned 5-by-7-inch prints will also be available for sale, signed by Hogancamp, until April 13 at One Mile Gallery, 475 Abeel Street in Kingston, and online: https://onemilegallery.com

Also, a note from the gallery: It’s Mark’s birthday this week so if you have a pair of used size 8.5 heels you’d like to bring on Saturday, he would appreciate it.