Tonja Torgerson and Christa Carleton will present on their collaborative series ‘Body Politic’. Printmakers Carleton and Torgerson work together to highlight the tumultuous position of the body and gender roles. Using letterpress, screenprint, and woodcut, their prints reference broadsides, and the use of print-media to create and destabilize current ideas about our bodies.
Split between Indiana and Montana, the artists respond to one another and these topics layer by layer, building a dialogue across the country and within each print. Carleton and Torgerson will delve into the intricacies of their collaborative process, offering insights into their use of the figurative nude as a tool for critiquing the modern societal landscape while sharing about the creation of ‘Body Politic’ and its ongoing outcomes.
Originally from the northern woods of Minnesota, Tonja Torgerson received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and MFA in Printmaking at Syracuse University. Her artwork is regularly exhibited nationally and internationally; and is included in private and museum collections, including the Weisman Art Museum and the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
Torgerson is a Lecturer of Printmaking at Indiana University. She has been a resident artist at Texas Tech University, West Virginia Wesleyan College, the Lawrence Arts Center in Kansas, Fogo Island in Newfoundland Canada, AIR: Artist Image Resource of Pittsburgh, and New York Mills in Minnesota. She is a Lecturer of Printmaking at Indiana University. Her recent series Body Politic, a collaboration with Christa Carleton, was awarded funding from the Puffin Foundation, the Holter Museum, Indiana University, and the McKnight Foundation.
tonjatorgerson.com
