2018
3rd Place recipient
Christina West
I create installations that use the sculptural human figure and the alteration of space to create psychologically charged environments; in varying ways, each installation touches on overarching ideas about a desire to understand and connect with others, the prevalence of individual subjectivity in our experience of reality, and the ways our physical encounters with spaces and with representations of bodies can affect perceptions of our own bodies. The figurative sculptures within the installations pull us into their fictional realities with a high degree of naturalism and notions of the private made public, while simultaneously pushing us away, or creating a psychological distance, with their unrealistic scale, unnatural colors, and lack of narrative clarity. Similarly, the spaces often incorporate color choices or spatial strategies that pull viewers into the space, while simultaneously making them feel uncomfortable or alienated once inside.
