Sperone Westwater opens an online-only exhibition of works by Kim Dingle

NEW YORK, NY.-Sperone Westwater is presenting “Kim Dingle: Floaters,” an online viewing room featuring new works from 2009. Inspired by a trip inside a sensory deprivation tank, the Floaters series was made during a time of intense stress and anxiety for the artist. Reflecting on this period in her life, Dingle recalls:

“One day in Hollywood, a long time ago, a friend and I visited some place in a strip mall where we paid a fee for each of us to be put into a coffin-sized blackened box full of water and no light. The lid was closed and there was utter silence. It was called a samadhi tank. I’m not sure if there was oxygen in there but for a half an hour I waited for something to happen. Nothing happened…. not for me, anyway.

Altering my consciousness, seeking serenity and meditative escape from stress came to me while imagining that I was floating on clouds, weightless and extremely comfortable. These ‘Floaters’ as I call them were painted in the backroom of a successful restaurant which I had unfortunately opened in the middle of my studio and was managing as the dishwasher and director of wine.”

The resulting paintings reflect this period of self-isolation and meditative escape. The artist’s usual protagonists (chubby, white-frocked, mischievous little girls), previously gripped by mindless conflict and inexplicable anxiety, now feel weightless. With her signature gestural brushwork, Dingle creates a gentle sense of gravity that keeps the figure buoyant over ground. Each girl is painted in a moment of pause, immersed in the ambiguous space of a calming palette with evocative grays and calming blues.

Born in Pomona, California, Kim Dingle lives and works in Los Angeles. Dingle had her first solo show at Sperone Westwater in 1998 and subsequent exhibitions in 2000, 2007, 2012, and 2018.