Renowned artist Tonja Torgerson visits USU
Renowned artist Tonja Torgerson visited Utah State University Thursday to showcase her extensive portfolio and encourage students to embrace the disgusting in art and in life.
“My work circles around the idea that your identity and body are intertwined and inseparable, just like life and death. I always ask myself, when you undergo something disgusting, like trauma, what happens to you?” Torgerson said.
Torgerson has been working with students all week in the print shop on a surprise art project to be debuted later in the semester.
“She has really shown me how something everyone else might think is disgusting can actually be something beautiful, all you have to do is look,” said Jonah Banks, a student Torgerson has been mentoring during her visit.
Torgerson said going from living to death means whatever has died is transformed into something that is necessary for life. She compared this to utilizing compost, which is composed of dead plants, to nourish living plants and help them grow.
“I want to create art that leaves people thinking and lingering in an uncomfortable state. My art is disgusting, it is pregnant with death,” Torgerson said.
Analigh Evans, a sophomore currently studying art, said she enjoys Torgerson’s art and style even more now that she has had the chance to work with her.
“I definitely identify with (Torgerson’s) method and style. Her stories and inspirations have helped me enjoy line art as a new medium,” Evans said.
Torgerson’s parents were “back to the landers,” and growing up on a remote farm, death was a simple fact of life.
Torgerson was very open about her experiences on the farm and said, “I am very interested in realization of mortality, and growing up I was constantly exposed to it. This seemingly disgusting act of slaughter was, in my eyes, necessary for life to continue.”
Torgerson looks back on her childhood fondly, even though it was not a typical upbringing.
“My nearest neighbor was a little cemetery, which is so fitting to my work,” Torgerson said.
Torgerson received a BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Minnesota in 2007 and an MFA in printmaking from Syracuse University in 2013.
She has been creating and collaborating on exhibitions for over 10 years, her most recent exhibition, “Cost of Living,” was housed at the Iron Tail Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska, in early 2018. “Cost of Living” highlighted the disgust of the increased financial burden when living with chronic illness.
“With (‘Cost of Living’), I wanted to ask ‘what happens when you are not able to control yourself and your future?’” Torgerson said. “We are linked to a body that will fail, how to we compose our lives around that idea?”
Sophie Jensen, a student familiar with the “Cost of Living” exhibit, said “It is just deeply disturbing to look at when you first see it, but once you realize the message she is trying to get across, it actually becomes quite beautiful.
In 2017, Torgerson was part of a selected committee of exhibitionists to create “Dreamland” at Utah State University.
“‘Dreamland’ was an incredible experience, and I was so lucky to get to work with Tonja on it. She really helped us bring some understated and underappreciated beauty into the project,” said Logan Duggar, a local artist who attended the event to support Torgerson, one of his greatest mentors.
Torgerson has completed several renowned residencies throughout the United States and Canada, and was a recipient of the exclusive Jerome Foundation Fellowship. She has also received several awards including The Minnesota Museum of American Art Purchase Award and The Master’s Prize at Syracuse University.
Torgerson has several inspirations, but said her work is most influenced by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, Greek historian Plutarch and the genre of art, Vanitas.
Thomas Hobbes’ work “Leviathan” inspires Torgerson with the idea that the world is composed of the one, the many, the sum and the whole.
“In relationship to identity and individual, all of these little things make up my work. The one and the many truly make up the comprehensive whole,” Torgerson said.
Plutarch’s wooden ships dilemma brings inspiration and confusion to Torgerson and her art. Plutarch asked, when a ship has been wrecked and the broken boards are replaced with new boards, is the ship the same ship or a new ship? Do these new parts to the ship replace the essence that made the old ship the old ship?
Torgerson said “(Plutarch) is just so fascinating to me. I don’t have an answer to his dilemma, but that unknown really does fuel my art.”
Vanitas is a genre of art made popular by the Danish in the 17th century.
“The purpose of this art is to remind you of death with seemingly beautiful things, it is really off-kilter,” Torgerson said.
Torgerson relies on color and content to shape her purpose of disgust. She strays away from using much color in her art, since the lack of color means the viewer cannot distinguish between life and death. She also utilizes plants to convey certain emotions she wants her viewers to feel.
“I use several plants to try to show what I am feeling. I think plants are relatable to humans, they die and so do we,” Torgerson explained. “But they are sometimes much more beautiful and impactful than a simple human body would be. They enhance the human form.”
She first started creating art in the form of street murals. These murals were made of newsprint paper and pasted directly onto walls of old, decrepit factories, warehouses and apartment buildings.
“I chose these sites for my street art as a metaphor for the body,” Torgerson explained. “These buildings were meant to last forever, but they didn’t. Our bodies are meant to last forever, but they don’t.”
The newsprint paper slowly breaks down and disappears after a week or two, but she said this decay doesn’t bother her in the least.
“All traces of my art disappear, just like humans do.”
— Brianne Sorensen
@SorensenBrianne