Leech

Press Release

Opening Reception Thursday, April 2, 6-8pm

I got out. I’ve lived a full life. I was in hiding, yea, but I had peers, whom I shared everything with. We learned from each other. We stole from each other. Looks I tried and discarded were taken up by others. At times I was frail, but strength isn’t only found in the body. In the absence of skin, scar tissue will do. I learned patience waiting in envy for attention. Now, I flare up when I’m looked at, expanding to my limits as a self defense mechanism. hey say if you see a mountain lion in the wild, you should make yourself look larger, but don’t look it in the eye. I don’t look back, at you or what I used to be. I live in the moment, but am a record that can be played backwards. If we are in fact a summation of our experiences, then she and I are the same. Do I look like her? Do I have her features? I am suspicious, as she is. I react, as she does. I will return to sludge, as she will. I am her dream, and she mine.

Kari Cholnoky holds an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA from Dartmouth College, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Horizontal Loader, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2023); Impending Moreness, Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago (2021); and Maw, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2021). Group exhibitions include Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2025); he Pit, Los Angeles (2025); CANADA, New York (2023); Rachel Uffner Gallery and Mrs. Gallery, New York (2021); Ceysson & Bénétière, New York (2020); and Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2019), among others. Cholnoky was recently a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Painting (2024), a MacDowell Fellow in Painting (2023), and attended the Worth Advisory Artist Residency in Bovina, NY (2019) and the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL (2017). The artist’s work is held in the public collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. This is her third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Text by Greg Carideo