Exhibition
Body Politic
An exhibition by Christa Carleton and Tonja Torgerson
Artists
Tonja Torgerson
@tonja_torgerson
Tonja Torgerson received her BFA from the University of Minnesota and MFA in Printmaking at Syracuse University. Her artwork is regularly exhibited nationally and internationally and is in several museum collections, such as the Weisman Art Museum and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. Torgerson has been a resident artist at West Virginia Wesleyan College, the Lawrence Arts Center, Fogo Island, Artist Image Resource of Pittsburgh, and New York Mills, Minnesota. She is an Assistant Professor and Section Lead of Printmaking at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.
Christa Carleton
@chrstalynn
Christa Carleton received her BFA from Western Colorado University and MFA in Printmaking from Montana State University. Christa works regularly in screenprint and woodcut, but letterpress is where her loyalties lie. She is currently a screenprint technician at a textile printing business and pursues her artistic practice on top of her full time job. Her artwork is often exhibited nationally; some notable places include The Missoula Art Museum in Missoula Montana, The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers Wisconsin, The Janet Turner Print Museum in Chico California, The Blockfort Gallery in Columbus Ohio, and The Haley Gallery at Hatch Show Print in Nashville Tennessee.
Christa Carleton (left) and Tonja Torgerson (right)
Body Politic
Bodies have always been a point of control, debate, and controversy within our society.
Printmakers Christa Carleton and Tonja Torgerson make work to highlight the tumultuous
position of the body and gender roles.
Project Description:
The exhibition presents a series of collaborative prints, all focused on political themes associated with the figurative nude. Using letterpress, screenprint, risograph, and woodcut, these prints reference broadsides and use the impact of print-media to destabilize current ideas on gender roles and our bodies.
Mailing prints, drawings, and ideas back and forth from Indiana to Montana, the artists are responding to one another and these topics layer by layer, building a dialogue across the country and within each print. Stark, nude figures are combined with bold, aggressive text that challenge the expectations which are put upon them.
Artists’ Statement:
This project began in 2020, and five years later its themes feel even more endangered. Through figurative nudes and bold visual narratives, our work challenges entrenched notions of gender roles and societal constraints. The series examines the turmoil many experience as they navigate their bodies within contemporary culture, exposing difficult truths in order to inspire meaningful change.
Our subject matter draws directly from lived experience—personal, embodied, and authentic, as we confront the consequences of our bodies daily. Our prints resist outdated expectations of femininity and question widespread assumptions about the role and value of female-expressing people. Body Politic pushes back against the dominant structures of Western society that pit us against one another, while rejecting the pernicious mentality that our bodies exist primarily to please others. In doing so, we contribute to the ongoing dialogue of intersectional feminism, adding our voices to a lineage of artists and activists who demand inclusivity and equity.
Yet this position is not always welcome. A recent exhibition of Body Politic in Wyoming was cancelled by institutional leadership—despite being accepted by a jury of faculty and awarded an endowed prize by the very same institution.
We recognize that educational and cultural organizations dependent on state and federal funding face heightened political scrutiny, and many are responding by pulling programming that could attract the attention of state and federal legislators. Unfortunately, this reflects a broader trend across the United States: institutions self-censoring in the face of external political pressure.
The cancellation of Body Politic feels surreal—that this collaboration could be deemed too dangerous to exhibit. We’ve become part of a growing group of censored artists— a club none of us ever wished to join. How many more times will the art world, or even our smaller printmaking community, let moments like this pass unchallenged?
What feels most complicated is how to respond without harming those who fought to keep the exhibition alive. Their efforts matter, and they deserve our respect. At the same time, silence isn’t an option. We’ll carry this forward, finding ways to show the work, to make space for it elsewhere, and to keep pushing against the limits placed on us. Persistence itself becomes part of the practice.
Since its inception in 2020, the significance of Body Politic has deepened. In 2025, its message feels more urgent than ever. At a time when bodies, identities, and voices are increasingly politicized, we must continue to stand firm, to speak out, and to defend the rights and freedoms of all people.
You’re Looking at Me Like I’m See Through
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2020
You’re Looking at Me Like I’m See Through (detail)
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2020
Never on Solid Ground
Screenprint
26” x 36”
2021
Your Assumptions are Limiting
Woodcut & screenprint
28” x 22”
2021
Your Assumptions are Limiting (detail)
Woodcut & screenprint
28” x 22”
2021
Rat Race
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2021
We Police this by Ourselves
Woodcut & screenprint
26” x 37”
2021
Still Self Censoring
Woodcut & screenprint
28” x 22”
2021
Pressed to Suppress
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
Revoked
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
Revoked (detail)
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
Torchbearer
Watercolor Monotype Screenprint
38” x 26”
2022
Welcomed/Tolerated
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze (detail)
Screenprint
28” x 22”
2022
There is So Much to Unlearn
Pressure print & screenprint
36” x 19”
2022
She’s Just Crazy
Woodcut
Three Editions of 15
22” x 15”
2022
She’s Just Crazy (detail)
Woodcut
Three Editions of 15
22” x 15”
2022
She’s Just Crazy (detail)
Woodcut
Three Editions of 15
22” x 15”
2022
She’s Just Crazy (detail)
Woodcut
Three Editions of 15
22” x 15”
2022
Keep it Down
Screenprint
Edition of 90
17” x 11” each (installation size varies)
2022
Keep it Down (detail)
Screenprint
Edition of 90
17” x 11” each (installation size varies)
2022
Untitled
Risograph
10” x 8”
2022
“What is male is seen as universal” and “What is female is seen as atypical” was paraphrased from Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Untitled
Risograph
10” x 8”
2022
“What is male is seen as universal” and “What is female is seen as atypical” was paraphrased from Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Never
Risograph
5” x 15.5”
2024
They Are Relying On You Giving Up Completely
Screenprint
14” x 11”
2024
In A Broken World There Are No Perfect Choices
Letterpress & screenprint
13.5” x 11.25”
2024