For over a decade, Christa Blackwood’s artistic practice has been rooted in an ongoing exploration of gender, power, and representation. Since 2013, I’ve

worked almost exclusively with a core group of male collaborators—Sam, Blake, Morgan, Richard, and Matt—reimagining the visual

language of the photographic figure study.

Her process often begins with a twist: the models themselves select reference images from a vast archive of historical figure photography—

images that, more often than not, depict women through the lens of male photographers. This reversal is intentional. We’re engaging with,

and subtly subverting, a canon shaped by artists like Weston, Stieglitz, White, Callahan, Newton, Man Ray, Gowan, and Gibson. Their work

becomes both inspiration and foil—material for homage, critique, and transformation.

The photographs are created using large-format film cameras, both in studio and on location. The final works span silver gelatin prints,

photogravures, and platinum prints on vellum. Many of the silver prints are uniquely toned with Benadryl or layered with marbling and hand-

painted interventions—each piece a tactile, alchemical object. The collaborative journey has taken them across the American landscape—

from the surreal dunes of White Sands, NM, to the sculptural rock formations of Garden of the Gods, CO; from the lush Piney Woods of

East Texas to the haunting bayous of Louisiana; from Moab’s red earth to the windswept Texas Gulf Coast, standing in for the iconic dunes of

Oceano, CA.

This body of work is as much about reclaiming gaze and agency as it is about beauty, vulnerability, and the shifting terrain of masculinity. It’s a

living archive of collaboration, reinterpretation, and resistance.