Holding Pattern

Press Release for Capsule Filling by Zoie Yung

Nicki Cherry's Holding Pattern is a sculpture consisting of hands and shoulder blades, with one hand suspended on a handle and the other folded, reminiscent of the cross-legged figure on the "Hanged Man" tarot card-a symbol of alchemy. Cherry's practice questions what the body can be. She uses alchemical metaphors to deconstruct the body and material substitution, creating an intriguing dialogue with Metabolist architects who envisioned cities as ephemeral organic life forms, constantly revitalized through modular reorganization. Scattered across the sculpture's surface are blister pearls, which, for the artist, are secretions of excess emotions, crystallizing on the surface like scabs. Gilles Deleuze argues that a scar "contracts all the instants which separate us from the wound into a living present." The "scabs" on the sculpture marks a condensation of each cycle, a reference point akin to the "Three Stones" in the Shikinen Sengu periodical renewal ritual of Ise Shrine. Through repeated returns to the original point, things gradually become what Deleuze describes as the aiôn-the recurrence of time between an ever-changing past and future.