Featured image: Staring at the Son installation view at the University of Kentucky Art Museum (Lexington), 2024, 4k looping video, silicone life cast, plaster life-cast, lumber. Image courtesy of the artist.
Written by Linda Marcus
Empathy is what you will likely feel when you encounter the art of Christina A. West. The UW-Madison assistant professor’s sculpture practice centers on the body, defining an “alternate gaze” – a way of looking at the body that isn’t gender dependent. West says she is presenting the body in a fragmented form to further the idea: “I’m interested in trying to represent those bodies that make us more open to what we can expect from those bodies. And even though those bodies look different, they may be experiencing similar things emotionally. So, fragmentation is a way to present an incomplete image. It isn’t the whole picture. The idea is there’s more here that we can’t see instead of giving an illusion of wholeness.”
West’s practice challenges the patriarchal gaze, one she says limits our understanding of what a body can do. “The problem is when it becomes a pervasive representation, and we start to overlay that representation over most women, and then it flattens them and what they can do, and that’s a problem. There’s a similar issue when it happens with a male body as well. It flattens them. They are powerful leaders and in control, so we don’t see those moments where they are vulnerable and awkward. I’m interested in reducing the distance between how we see male and female, and I think we are much closer related than what culture has made it seem.”
Photography, video, and sculpture deepen West’s understanding of the dynamics of looking at a body and how a body moves. West began by focusing on the male body, an area often considered taboo for a woman. “The decision to focus my studio practice on the male gaze and challenging it became partially from thinking about the male gaze and challenging those perceived roles. Usually, the woman would be the one having her image created. She’s more passive and the object of the gaze. Now, I’m behind the camera, and now I’m in the active role, directing the models and recording what I want to see. For me, that’s a political act. You don’t really see a lot of male bodies from a non-male perspective. It’s usually men by men and it was an interesting thing to me because I wanted to see the male body and I was wondering why other women weren’t interested in this. It’s what I want to see. I don’t have to wait for someone else to do it. I’m just going to do it.”
The journey began with an idea. West admits she didn’t have it all figured out in the form a thesis, so she started with just one question,” What would it even look like if I removed the combination of male and female gender and that dynamic? It’s just a woman looking at a male body.” That inquiry led to a deeper complexity. West says, ” It’s interesting to me when it’s a complex image, and it isn’t entirely one thing or another. It’s not entirely about their strength or not entirely about their weakness, either. So, I’m trying to position myself within that, and gradually, the conceptual aspect clarified more for me.”
West received her BFA from Siena Heights University in Michigan and her MFA from Alfred University in New York. Her work has been extensively exhibited throughout the United States. West is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her training in sculpture has allowed her to push back against realism with abstraction by using all different body types, creating work that teeters aesthetically between beautiful and grotesque. It’s a way of reminding the viewer of the value of being uncomfortable. “I just feel like whenever there is something uncomfortable, then there’s something worth considering, like why is it making you uncomfortable? I think it gets at something deep inside of us that’s culturally ingrained from our families and ideas of what people think is acceptable. I this prompts reflection in us.”
West is also interested in what happens on the interior of a body and how it’s displayed on the body’s exterior. “How is the body revealing what is going on inside a person? How are they feeling when the things that aren’t visual? How is that revealed through the body knowing the way it is revealed is highly flawed?”
Much of her sculptures are made via direct contact with the material and the models with latex and Hydrocal castings. When West works with clay, she’s keenly aware of how her perspective is embedded into the material. “Handling material is a way that has shown me that my hands are more analogous to my gaze. It’s like I’m leaving my imprint of my presence on the work instead of the object just magically appearing.”
All of this is in service to expanding the way West thinks about bodies without the added layer of gender. For West and all viewers, it’s “An alternate way of representing bodies that aren’t coming from a gender perspective with the inclusivity of empathetic, complex representations that does justice to what the embodied experience is really like rather than being I’m a woman looking at a man, so I’m going to look at him this way. It’s not always going to be the same; it depends on the context. it’s about creating representations that aren’t so limiting.”
Visit www.cwestsculpture.com to learn more and connect on Instagram at @cwestsculpture
Linda Marcus is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Drawing on her long history as a TV News journalist and fashion designer, her work in fiber and sculpture touch on issues of memory, identity, and materiality. Marcus was recently awarded an art residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Wisconsin Art, the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber arts as well as the Charles Allis Museum and numerous galleries across the country and art publications. Currently, Marcus is the creative director and co-curator for the Saint Kate Arts hotel in Milwaukee.