Chicago Artworks on Display: Explore the Current Space

New sculpture by California-based artist Michael Kalish has arrived at Carousel Fine Art Chicago, marking the gallery debut of one of contemporary art's most formally inventive sculptors. Kalish transforms the discarded materials of American consumer culture: license plates, automobile parts, punching bags, reclaimed firearms, into works of structural precision and emotional resonance. His practice sits within the American tradition of found-object sculpture while maintaining a visual language that is entirely his own. Nude in Repose brings that material engagement to one of art history's most enduring subjects. The nude has been a site of formal experimentation for centuries; in Kalish's hands, it is met by the unexpected textures and surfaces of industrial salvage, creating a dialogue between historical subject and contemporary material that gives the work its particular tension.

Kalish's monumental public installations have earned him international recognition, among them reALIze, a three-dimensional portrait of Muhammad Ali assembled from 1,300 suspended punching bags, and Raise the Caliber, constructed from reclaimed firearms as a statement on gun violence. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Time Magazine, and Art in America, and sits in collections including the US Embassy in Moscow, Ford Motor Company, and the Coca-Cola Corporation. 

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New work by Belgian artist Isabelle Scheltjens has arrived at Carousel Fine Art Chicago, showcasing the artist's distinctive glass-fusing technique. Working from her studio in Grobbendonk, Scheltjens builds large-scale portraits from approximately 20,000 individual hand-cut glass plates, each fired in a kiln at around 800 degrees Celsius. The result is a medium that exists at the precise intersection of mosaic, painting, and optical art; one she has refined over years of dedicated practice.

The experience of her work shifts radically with distance. Up close, the surface reads as pure abstraction: planes of color and texture with no legible form. Step back, and the elements resolve into a portrait with a presence that no painted surface can replicate, because the light is passing through glass rather than reflecting off it. The influence of Seurat's pointillism and Warhol's approach to the iconic face are traceable, but the work belongs entirely to Scheltjens.

Thousand Eyes, One Soul speaks directly to the mechanics of what she does: thousands of individual elements, each incomplete on its own, combining into a singular consciousness at the right distance. It is a work about perception, how meaning forms not from any single part but from the relationship between all of them. Scheltjens has exhibited in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Dubai, Amsterdam, and London.

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