HOWARDENA PINDELL: DEEP SEA, DEEP SPACE
White Cube Hong Kong presents Howardena Pindell’s first solo exhibition in Asia, entitled “Deep Sea, Deep Space”.
November 20, 2024 – January 8, 2025
A reciprocal relationship between Pindell’s spray paintings and her works using hole-punched chads can be gleaned – each technique fortifies the other’s exploration of surface and depth, whether by the illusory nature of her canvases or the tactile dimensionality of piled paper. Originating from her 12 years of handling paper as a curator at MoMA and a lifelong fascination with the layering of textiles in African indigenous costume, Pindell’s attraction to palimpsestic dimensionality is also informed by to her experiences in Asia.
The exhibition debuts Pindell’s ‘Deep Sea’ series, which she also refers to as ‘Deep Space’, furthering her inquiry into elusive phenomena that acquire form and meaning through scientific knowledge. Like the circle motif, this interest is rooted in her childhood: ‘My father was a mathematician, and he was interested, of course, in science. And so instead of a doll, I was given a microscope for Christmas, and I was enamoured by what I would see. I had the slides, and I put some drinking water from Philadelphia on the slide, and you won't believe what was swimming around in the drinking water’; a visual recollection bringing to mind Pindell’s bokeh effect compositions.
In Deep Sea #8, the base colour dilates and contracts between a dark, off-black blue and something closer to twilight, while yellow phosphorescence sparkles on the surface, conjuring churning galaxies as well as the bioluminescent lamps of deep-sea organisms. Switching from a horizontal to a vertical format, Deep Sea #3 is grounded with burnt sienna, establishing a terrestrial cosmos. Though initially the surface appears uniform, prolonged viewing reveals a burst of light – formed of sky blue and umbrous orange particles of paint – fanning from above, intercut lengthways by faint plough lines that rhyme with the stitches in her cut and sewn work.
Rendered through stipples of light and colour, Pindell’s abstractions evoke vast and infinitesimal spectrums of existence, summoning equally visions of primordial creation and the Big Bang.