Howardena Pindell’s Spray Dot Paintings at Victoria Miro

Howardena Pindell‘s iconic spray dot paintings currently adorn the walls of Victoria Miro‘s London gallery.

In this series, which she started in the early 1970s, Pindell begins by punching holes into discarded cardstock, manila folders, and heavy watercolour paper. She then sprays paint through these templates onto the canvas beneath.

In 2021, Pindell spoke with Katy Hessel, host of The Great Women Artists podcast, about her initial attraction to spray dot painting.

‘Beauty seems to be an important aspect of my work,’ Pindell explained. ‘That may partly be the influence of the feminist movement, as I started using unorthodox materials such as glitter and powder. I thought not so much that [spray dot paintings] were minimalist, but thought of them as transcending the mundane circle. Clustered dots sprayed in something of beauty that lifted one up out of the daily humdrum of life.’

Among the works in Pindell’s exhibition New Works (8 June–29 July 2023) at Victoria Miro is the monumental diptych Tesseract #4 (2023), which measures nearly five metres long.

Main image: Howardena Pindell, Tesseract #1 (2022). Acrylic on canvas. 198.1 x 223.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York and Victoria Miro. © Howardena Pindell.