Contributed by Matthew Logsdon / Upon entering “Leech,” Kari Cholnoky’s third solo exhibition at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, one of the first sculptures encountered is Conservation of Mass, a cranial-like form of smooth, peach-colored alabaster atop a steel pedestal. It is vertically symmetrical, with the most protruding elements centered like noses, creating a ribbed topography of ridges and recesses that suggest a face. The casual viewer is afforded just enough space between the sculpture and the wall to peek around the back of the piece but not enough to see it from eye level. An especially bold and engaged visitor, though, would find a wisdom tooth resting within a fleshy cavity. Is this the physical record of bodily alteration? Part of a strategy of removing superfluous body parts? Conservation of Mass embodies mortal life: confrontation, cat and mouse, meat and bone. There’s acknowledgment that sometimes something needs to be cut out to salvage the whole. Nuts and bolts join steel panels; wires hold things in place; mesh covers without concealing. I can’t help but picture the tools used in trauma surgery – metal running through flesh to stabilize its interior workings.
When a limb is re-attached in surgery, blood sometimes pools, preventing circulation crucial to healing. Today, doctors still prescribe leeches as a solution. The eponymous Leech is a life-size, bust-like form on a steel pedestal. Ridges along the top suggest a helmet. The front panels, which could cover a human face, have been peeled open, revealing an interior that is not entirely hollow but is too dark to see fully. Images printed on felt adorn this work and others. The images register as a variety of subjects, including MRI scans, biological diagrams, and pop culture. Blacks and dark greens contrast with the harsh reds, oranges, and yellows used to map infrared vision, often possessed by predators. These bands of color stretch horizontally across the front, merging landscape with figure.
The elongated, horizontal form is characteristic of Cholnoky’s work, on grand display in Center of Gravity – a towering piece anchoring the show in the back gallery. Five horizontal paintings are mounted on a two-legged steel rack, three across the front and two across the back. The works suggest the cycle of growth and decomposition and therefore the passage of time. One horizontal form is dated 2018–2026, leaving no doubt that Cholnoky earns the transformation she means to impart. Spotlights surround Center of Gravity with a yellow hue, softening the steel rack and shifting the sense of the piece from hulking shipyard storage to inviting warm bath. Cholnoky’s fusion of painting and sculpture, figure and landscape, image and instinct is complex and generous, expansive and searching.
“Leech” jolts and enlivens the routine of meandering through galleries by presenting an unending list of issues and concerns. It also offers a response to a question that has become increasingly difficult to answer when considering art today: what is at stake? For Cholnoky, it might be survival. In a time when we have instantaneous access to countless images and human thought is increasingly outsourced, we risk collective dullness. There will be consequences. Cholnoky’s work exhorts us to be alert to them and helps us to mitigate them. Deep into “Leech,” I started to feel as if I were stalking – and then wondered if I were also being stalked.
“Kari Cholnoky: Leech,” Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, 7 Franklin Place, New York, NY. Through May 9, 2026.
About the artist: Matthew Logsdon is an artist, curator, and founder of Field of Play, a nonprofit gallery in Gowanus, Brooklyn. His work has been shown at The Hole, Below Grand, and Tappeto Volante, among other venues.
