West of the River

In West of the River, photographer Christian Badach describes the paradoxical notions that come from being immersed in the rural landscape and these spaces' ability to act as catalysts in the formation of specific emotions. In showing the landscape in various states of natural and unnatural fluctuation, his work uses the visual cues presented by the changing of seasons, weather variations, and natural phenomena. These visual cues are employed to show how the rural landscape can dictate the movement of the human body—offering both permissions and restrictions that are correlative to constructing emotional headspaces. In a practice that is tied to the dismantling of these resulting internal spaces, Badach uses the visual codes of decontextualized landscape imagery, evidence of natural phenomena, and portraiture to investigate how the evolving landscape plays a key role in manifesting specific psychological states and to convey the landscapes dichotomic offerings that shift between vitality and death, bliss and madness, comfort and destabilization, and community and isolation. Meet the Artist: Christian Badach ’26 ART