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.
