The Surrealists used to troll the flea markets of Paris looking for the marvelous to appear amid tables of
out-of-fashion knick knacks and other old junk. And find it they did — or rather, as André Breton would put it, sometimes it found them. Shoe spoons and African masks and other doodads attracted them with the aura of another time, for being out of sync with the capitalist whirlwind of the day, for speaking strangely of things
they were never meant to speak of. In her imagery, photographer Tina West has channeled this spirit and romanticized it, arranging dead bugs and sprung springs, old clocks and cracked eggs, worn cigar boxes
and rusty butterfly bolts in delicate, spare assemblages that transform these outmoded objects into curiously charming tableaux. With titles that speak of memory and time, dreams and balance, and pictures that trade
in the aura of sepia and other retro tones, West has created images that trade the radicality of Surrealism’s collage aesthetic for one that is, although more docile, none the less poetic for it. In one photograph a wishbone balanced on a metal spool swings like a metronome, in another like a human being — and that is an object lesson for any day, including ours.
As if developed from memory, West’s photograph’s channels imagery from a familiar past life. Just as the
DaDa artists utilized art objects in unconventional forms produced by unconventional methods, West utilizes coincidence as a means of production. In another image, she takes advantage of the well-timed chance appearance of a bug in her studio, overshadowed by a blurred timer in the background. The image is striking with the distinct outline of the bug’s antennae forming a heart above the lifeless figure, disturbingly intimate through the juxtaposition of the subjects and the happenstance that unifies them. West’s images are painterly, presenting themselves as either single entities or still-life constructions and assemblages. Many of her photographs created themselves around the objects – whether fishhooks, a mysterious container or firecrackers—West is able to recall once-forgotten objects as a beautiful vignettes of nostalgia and curiosity. A photographer by trade, West considers herself a still-life imagist. A unifying thread of simplicity exists throughout her work – illustrated though her use of a single light source, timeless and seemingly meaningless objects and shadows – a combination that evokes a sense of wonder and awe at the images that seem to have sprung from nothing. Originally from Kansas City, Tina West discovered photography while studying sculpture. While living in New York she was a commercial photographer working for clients such as Knopf Books, Vintage Books, Simon & Schuster, Citibank, Atlantic Records, The Moderns and Scientific American Magazine. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, Santa Fe, and Portland, as well as Kansas City.
