I really enjoyed — like, a lot — the paintings by Christina Nicodema in a just concluded exhibition at Kravets Wehby Gallery in New York City.
They combine imagery evoking historical tapestries in the background with curiously decaying, artfully overwrought spreads of fruit and cake in the foreground, all joined time and again in these place-less celebrations by small animals. I was fascinated by how what appeared, to me, to be mold or something similar looked in “Waterfall” (2025) just… beautiful.
It grabbed my attention, and I was left marveling at the unifying, momentary nature of it all.
I was reminded of historical Dutch still life paintings from the 1600s, where even when artifice prevails, there’s an approaching shadow — or the sense of a shadow — in the background. In Nicodema’s paintings, that duality of place and experience — consumption in tandem with creation — is also present, but the imagery is a lot lighter: literally, too.
Though any background world for Nicodema’s painted scenes was left gracefully obscured, the central imagery was still upliftingly lit.
Also: the rest of this is going to be a bit of poetry I wrote while contemplating the paintings. I’m really set on trying this — poetry in response to art — so, I’ve written a few.
Best wishes to the gallery and artist!
Eating a Hot Dog at The Met
by Valerie Bright, spurred by art from Christina Nicodema
Delicate elegance
Awash in a gently brushed field of walking through the sidewalks outside The Met,
Shearing stained glass sunlight hymnals from their shelf perches, Clanging into glistening bus stop ads, and
Me.
Overhanging oaks shade abandoned chandeliers.
I'm
Looking, lurching, lunging, eating a
Pear among the horse armor, contemplating the abandoned storefront with the decaying
Event ad perched in front of a pile of garbage behind the Windowed wall, nestled next to the
Grocery store's front doors in the town whose people I wonder if anybody even
Remembers.
I stand atop the royal view out onto Walker St, and onto Broadway. Except, none of the people I can see actually know I exist.
Though I do.
Fired out of a circus cannon into a thicket of stressful text messages.
That's silly. They're just
little
words
on a
tiny
computer.
How many times have I thought about throwing it into
the river?
Now I'm the one
thrown into
Flickers, lapping at the wall from a light source I can’t even see.
I think the usefulness of a museum is to imagine yourself in a place entirely unfamiliar, finding that it’s not so unfa-
So I don’t just see
Myself
In the glint of the medieval reliquary. I am
Myself.
Why the hell did they put bones in there?
Suddenly there's devotional gobs of paint popping against the pristine raspberry frosting sandwich in the
period rooms, and a yellowed shimmer fills the
air.
Taking pictures in an Amtrak station,
lemonade splashing the darkness-lashed windows, so much
Pressure that they look as though they might
cave in.
But it's okay! I'm on a street outside of time and inside a vegan sandwich that
actually
wasn't very good
on the way to the train station.
When I want to see myself
Differently,
sometimes it suffices to be peacefully eating a snack. The
Last page of the book is a
Pretzel in the Javits Center.
I'm opening an empty gift in my canoe
In the museum water fountain.
The yawning chasm, walking into the place and already there
And I’m eating a sandwich. Or I’m
dreaming about eating a
sandwich.
Lustrous, luminous wares. Maybe they used to be mine in a
Previous life.
I
Suddenly
realize a bowl can hold the promise of an
Entire Life.
I find
Myself
Worshiping in the chapel rows
Peering into the prayer tent on the National Mall.
Wow, that table is much larger than me.
I’m hungry too and there’s never anywhere to eat. Thank god for the
hotdog stand.
