Tonja Torgerson

February 27 - March 4, 2023
Charles Adams Studio Project Print Studio & 806 Collective Studio C at CASP

• Wednesday, March 1^st: Printmaking Workshop at CASP Print Studio
• Friday, March 3^rd: First Friday Art Trail Exhibition, 806 Collective Studio C at CASP
• Saturday, March 4^th: Artist's talk at 11:00 AM in 806 Collective Studio C

From February 27th to March 2nd, artist-in-residence Tonja Torgerson transformed the 806 Collective Space at the Charles Adams Studio Project into Dissolution, a dystopic Garden of Eden filled with images of flora, insects, and decomposing figures. Wheat-pasting screen-printed collages of both symbolic and local plants, the artist provided an intimate pause for the audience to contemplate the uncomfortable nature of mortality, impermanence, and the frailty of the body in a lush but bleak environment.

This project was created with the help of students from Texas Tech School of Art and the Lubbock community. The results of the project were on view to the public in Studio C at CASP during the March 3rd First Friday Art Trail. This project was presented by the printmaking area of the TTU School of Art with support from the John T. & Ryla F. Lott Endowment for Excellence in the Visual Arts, and in collaboration with the 806 Collective and the Charles Adams Studio Project.

Originally from the northern woods of Minnesota, Tonja Torgerson received a B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota and a M.F.A. in Printmaking at Syracuse University. Her artwork is regularly exhibited nationally and internationally; and is a part of numerous 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 and has taught at the Penland School of Crafts, Kansas City Art Institute, and West Virginia Wesleyan College. She has been a resident artist at AIR: Artist Image Resource of Pittsburgh, Fogo Island in Newfoundland, Canada, Lawrence Arts Center, and New York Mills, Minnesota. Her recent work deals with death and the impermanent nature of the body.