David Lynch & Christina A. West reception

media release: In Tandem: David Lynch & Christina A. West

September 15–October 30, 2026Reception: Thursday, September 17, 6–9pm

The opening reception for this exhibition coincides with our fall Student Night. All are welcome to attend, but for our first exhibition of the fall season, we extend a special invitation to students to join us for the evening as they begin their new academic year.

In Tandem brings together the sculptures of Christina A. West and the photogravures of David Lynch in a dialogue that explores the human figure as a site of psychological tension, desire, and uncanny transformation. While Lynch’s dreamlike images, published by Tandem Press in 2021, center and render surreal the female form, West’s clay sculptures of the male nude play with Classical art historical conventions, introducing a wry humor into considerations of embodiment and the act of looking. Across sculpture and print, both artists blur the boundaries between beauty and unease, intimacy and estrangement, creating works that are at once materially grounded and psychologically charged. Together, they offer the body as an object to be looked at and as a corporeal presence, a form once familiar made strange.

David Lynch (1946-2025) was an artist, musician, and filmmaker who wrote and directed the critically acclaimed films Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and the television series Twin Peaks. A lifelong visual artist, Lynch’s paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and prints provide a deeper understanding of his vision and reveal a vital source of inspiration for his instantly recognizable filmmaking aesthetic. Lynch was the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide, most recently “Squeaky Flies in the Mud” at Sperone Westwater in New York and “My Head is Disconnected” at HOME in Manchester, England (both in 2019). Retrospectives of his work were held at Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Netherlands (2018-19), Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun, Poland (2017-18), and Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia (2015). Additional major surveys include exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2014-15 and the Fondation Cartier in Paris in 2007. In 2011, an extensive collection of his drawings, paintings, and photographs was published in Dark Splendor, a companion catalog to a retrospective of his work shown at the Max Ernst Museum in Bruhl, Germany.

Christina A. West is an artist who focuses on the male body within her sculpture, video, and photography. West earned her MFA from Alfred University (Alfred, NY) in 2006 and BFA from Siena Heights University (Adrian, MI) in 2003. After living in Atlanta for thirteen years, where she taught at Georgia State University, West relocated back to the Midwest in 2022, where she is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has extensively exhibited her work across the country in venues such as the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), The Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse), Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (Buffalo), the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, CA), and Atlanta Contemporary. Her work has been supported by grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Virginia Groot Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and she has participated in residencies at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, The Vermont Studio Center, The Clay Studio of Philadelphia, and the Center for Contemporary Ceramics at Cal State Long Beach.