KIM DINGLE, RANEE HENDERSON
BLINDFOLDED
June 14 - July 26, 2025
Opening Reception: June 14th, 5-8 pm
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
Image: Kim Dingle, When You Have To Beat The Crap Out Of Someone Using Paint, Oil on Plexiglass
Exhibited Works
Kim Dingle
When You Have To Beat The Crap Out Of Someone Using Paint
Oil on Plexiglass, 50 x 47 in
Kim Dingle
PAINTING BLINDFOLDED, (Gangs of Cypress Park), 2017
Oil on Plexiglass, 48 x 40 in
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Kim Dingle
Untitled 1-5 (painted blindfolded), 2017
10 x 8 in each panel; 5 panels total
Ranee Henderson
Commodities Oddities (Orange you grateful?), 2025
Mixed media on canvas 23 x 22 in
Ranee Henderson
We’re number one, 2025
Oil on canvas 20 x 20 in
Ranee Henderson
Lily of the rally, 2025
Mixed media on canvas 36 x 24 in
Ranee Henderson
Slumlord schism, slumlord slime (Orange you gonna fix those holes?), 2025
Mixed media on canvas 47 x 35 in
Ranee Henderson
Pen on Yupo paper
Ranee Henderson
Boredom 2025
Pen on Yupo paper, 11 x 14 in
Ranee Henderson
Revolt, 2025
Pen on Yupo paper, 14 x 8 in
Ranee Henderson
Health, 2025
Pen on Yupo paper, 8 x 10 in
Ranee Henderson
Power, 2025
Pen on Yupo paper, 14 x 8 in
Ranee Henderson
Inequity, 2025
Pen on Yupo paper, 11 x 14