Underdonk

press release

Ellie Krakow: Wheeled and Tethered
Curated by Alison Kudlow
January 9 – February 2, 2025
Opening Reception January 9, 6-8pm

When I first called Ellie Krakow to ask to see her work in person, I told her I was intrigued by the way her work speaks about the experience of a body in a clinical setting as both sterile and intimate. Her sculptures, despite their drollness and soft pastels, are brutally honest about the complex vulnerability of undergoing medical intervention. I was startled and titillated by their brazen legibility.

Ellie had already told me, after hearing me speak about my work, that she, like me, has Crohn’s disease. So, it was with a sense of familiarity that I told her about my experience moving to New York with a chronic disease. Hardly knowing anyone, I started going to a new doctor, a handsome older man on the Upper East Side. I was very sick at the time, so I had to visit his office frequently. I’d get there. I’d go into a small room. I’d disrobe. I’d stand naked before him and he’d examine me. And then I’d lie down on the examination table, and I’d roll over on my side and he would. . . and I paused here and gulped, and, very charitably, Ellie finished my sentence for me, “stick his finger up your ass.” Yes, I said, and that was the most intimate relationship in my life at that time, and not just because of the bodily penetration; he was also the guy that first noticed when I fell into a deep depression. He was the person looking out for me.

Perhaps inevitably, when I visited Ellie’s studio, we ended up standing among her works swapping tales of our time spent in hospitals. I began a story about walking the hallways at Mount Sinai, and as I spoke, I held up my hand in a gesture, not even thinking about it – it was the gesture of holding a rolling IV pole. Ellie laughed as she motioned to her piece, and said, “you were walking with your Hospital +1.” I laughed; yeah, I knew him well. On those walks he provided me with fluids. He provided me with pain meds. He provided me with support. That was another sort of intimacy.

For this exhibition Ellie and I selected three of her abstracted figurative sculptures that combine human forms with elements inspired by medical instruments and hospital architecture. Taking visual cues from the fleshy plastics and softened edges of hospital design, which Ellie refers to as “comfort corners,” the sculptures tease out ways that treatment and intervention shape bodily experience. Bodies morph into use-objects that fail at their presumed tasks. (W)heels can’t turn. Imaging screens display close-up photos of textures found in medical spaces instead of scientific data. And yet the flat humor of failure is paired with sensitive gestures of vulnerability and care, like the arm extended to lend support.

While viewing these pieces in her studio, I asked about how they are made. Ellie explained that she begins her sculptures by building a rigid anatomy that supports the fleshiness of the wet materials, like clay and gypsum, that she uses. She showed me the tools she uses to hone her pieces, as doctors might use medical instruments to examine and treat bodies. In the final stage of work, Ellie takes great care to smooth the scarred and labored surfaces created by her process. She admitted that her impulse to conceal imperfections may be an unconscious mirroring of living with invisible illness.

Ellie’s sculptures resonated with me, because I know the language they speak. I know that when you’re dealing with the weight of carrying an embattled body, you need that cold, highly engineered hospital equipment to hold you up. There was a time when I would have been embarrassed to talk about this knowledge, especially in relation to my work. After all, I came of age as an artist in the aughts, when one of the meanest things you could say to an artist was, “your work is personal” or, God forbid, “sincere.” I’m glad those days are behind us. We now seem to understand that what makes an artist is their lived experience. Of course, these issues are still embarrassing to talk about. Bodily orifices, and that most disgusting of bodily fluids, shit, still remain mostly taboo. But, shit or not, so many of us experience trauma at the hands of our medical system. Care, yes, and trauma. And so, to some degree, we all know this language. Ellie’s work speaks it with humor, tenderness, and courage that I’ve rarely seen.

-Alison Kudlow, curator

Ellie Krakow (b. 1978) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans sculpture, drawing and photography. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Marinaro, Below Grand, Goodyear Gallery at Dickinson College, NURTUREart, and Cuchifritos; and in group shows at venues including Simone Subal Gallery, 1/9unosunove, Field Projects, Thierry Goldberg, Kingston Sculpture Biennial, and the Pula Film Festival. She has participated in residencies at Skowhegan, Yaddo, Abrons Arts Center, Shandaken: Stormking, and The Swimming Hole Foundation. Parallel to her studio practice, Krakow’s text-based works have been published in Precog, VECTOR, Lookie-Lookie, and Drain Journal; and her curatorial projects have been shown at The Whitney Museum of American Art, NURTUREart, and Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State University. Krakow earned her MFA from Hunter College and her BA through study at Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design. She is currently a resident artist at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program.

Alison Kudlow (b. 1981) is an artist primarily working in sculpture. She earned a BA from the University of Southern California, a post-baccalaureate degree from Brandeis University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Studio Art. She has shown at galleries including Swivel Gallery, Parent Company, Field Projects, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, UrbanGlass, Underdonk, and at Fullerton College in California and Hunter College in New York. She presented a solo show at Elijah Wheat Showroom’s Brooklyn location in 2019. She was an invited resident at the Art Ichol Center in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh, India in January 2023. She had a solo show, Defensive Strategies for Tender Objects, at Deanna Evans Projects in Spring of 2024.