• Courtesy Of The Hesterly Black / Phoenix Gallery
• From top: "Unsheathed"

In 1964, Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously attempted to define obscenity by saying, "I know it when I see it." But images of the body have never been easy to categorize, even when social mores were stricter. Today, the once-mainstream idea that the body is obscene is regularly challenged by artists such as Burlington's Ana Koehler. Her exhibition "Revealed/Revered" is currently on view in the Hesterly Black gallery at Waterbury Studios.

Koehler's images of women's bodies are pink and fleshy, teasing and cartoony, cut up and stuck back together again. Thick, black, swirling lines of ink in the paintings suggest movement, guiding the viewer's eye up and around the bodies. Her figures' eyes are cut out and moved elsewhere, such as on a shoulder or hand. Many of the bodies are headless. A gravity-defying braid ropes around some, suggesting intestines, umbilical cords or bondage straps. Closely observed, these figures are more complex than sexy.

Koehler constructs her paintings via collage, reconfiguring them from pieces of earlier works. The technique results in areas that are built up and heavy, contrasting with light-pink washes and white space.

She draws equal focus to unexpected places. In "Unsheathed," the figure's nipples and nails are fuchsia; so are her kneecaps, hip bone, a heel. In "Rebuild," layers of dense, deep color create the impression of a body made of meat and organs — which, of course, it is.

• Courtesy Of The Hesterly Black / Phoenix Gallery
• "Rebuild"

Some of Koehler's titles reference Ida Applebroog, a New York artist who died last year at the age of 93. Applebroog was known for her works about gender, power and relationships. In 2010, she presented an exhibition based on drawings she had made of her own vagina and put away for 40 years. Koehler also explores the body in a way that is honest, expressive and unashamed.

There's a shift between the works in the Hesterly Black, most of which date from 2023, and a more recent series in Waterbury Studios' adjacent lounge. The earlier works are airier, and the figures have enigmatic expressions. The newer pieces focus on the body's weight and heft, conveying broad shoulders and larger proportions that seem more clearly observed. Despite the figures' lack of heads, these works are more confident; visitors ought not overlook them.

Koehler's artist statement describes her figures "existing in a state of perpetual transition," and it's evident that cutting, collaging and reworking them is a process of discovery — both compositionally and conceptually. While Koehler's imagining is inventive, it rests on an honest awareness of anatomy that keeps the figures grounded. According to the curatorial statement, one painting references Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese": "You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves."