PHASE GALLERY

KIM DINGLE, RANEE HENDERSON

BLINDFOLDED

June 14 - July 26, 2025

PHASE Gallery presents “Blindfolded,” an exhibition of works by Kim Dingle and Ranee Henderson that explore what it means to create in the absence of sight. Opening June 14, 2025, “Blindfolded” is Dingle’s first exhibition with the gallery and Henderson’s second, following her celebrated “Nuts Cut Clean” from 2022.

Dingle and Henderson symbolically and temporarily sacrifice their sight to bypass the overdeterminacy of visual perception. While Dingle uses her blindfold to access muscle memory to paint her beloved “wild girls”, Henderson engages with a series of techniques that allow her to develop her imagination without relying on her traditional senses. By denying themselves access to their eyesight, both artists step out of the realm of the habitual to claim space for the unexpected.

Dingle began painting blindfolded in an attempt to frustrate expectations around representations of her “wild girls”, the rambunctious protagonists of many of her works. In a playful act of defiance perfectly suited to the character she paints, Dingle covers her eyes and relies on her instinct and feel to render her familiar subject in unexpected ways. Her portraits in “Blindfolded,” along with a vignette of young women shooting arrows and a plane crashing into the side of a building, feature expressionistic gestures that captivate and enchant.

Henderson’s blindfold is one element of a matrix of techniques that she uses to connect directly to her imagination. Blindfolds, earplugs, and other items block out the senses to cultivate a direct channel between the mind’s eye, the implement, and the gesture. After her initial, blindfolded mark on the canvas — millipedes, praying hands, and silhouettes of peanuts — Henderson paints richly colored scenes that feature isolated figures and loosely recognizable everyday objects. A series of drawings made completely blindfolded will hang in found, hand-whittled frames that function as wall sculptures. By turning off her sight and tuning into her imagination, Henderson revitalizes automatic drawing to find uninterrupted access to her inner mind.

Side by side, Dingle and Henderson’s work demonstrate that sight is a complex and deceptive function, not entirely necessary to paint or draw. In a world filled with images designed to deceive and manipulate, the choice of an artist to emphasize working while blindfolded suggests that unmediated, direct access to inner vision might help us navigate a world in which our eyes deceive us.

Text: Stewart Campbell

Curated by Ewa Słapa