5 years in the past, Tarka Kings found a blissful sanctuary in the midst of London’’s bustling retailers and skyscrapers. Located in Hyde Park, the Serpentine Lido is a pure oasis in one of many world’s busiest cities, visited by wild swimmers and dazzling white swans alike. For her new London exhibition, “Mornings at the Lido,” on view at Offer Waterman, by means of October twenty fourth, the British artist’s coloured pencil and graphite drawings present an intimate view into moments of transition by the water.
“I’ve all the time liked that type of swimming,” Kings informed me forward of the exhibition opening. For years, she would swim in rivers round Scotland and England, a pastime for from time to time slightly than an everyday pastime. However when she started to go to the Serpentine “extra severely” with a pal throughout the pandemic, she turned hooked. “After some time, it turns into an addictive factor which you’ll be able to’t cease,” she mentioned. Kings doesn’t see herself as a swimmer with targets. She is just not fascinated by races or private data. What she is drawn to is the depth of the chilly water and the bodily and emotional buzz that follows. This expertise is what evokes her latest physique of labor, which was a change in course for the brand new present. Beforehand, her dramatic graphite renderings of sunshine by means of home windows and summary paper cutouts have been proven at galleries together with the Royal Academy of Arts and London gallery Pippy Houldsworth.
There was a surge of curiosity in wild swimming within the U.Ok. over the past decade, which for a lot of, can carry better understanding of nature and its wants. But in lots of areas, this apply is underneath risk because of sewage dumping in rivers and seas. For Kings, this solely “makes it extra valuable to folks.” She enjoys the neighborhood facet of semi-wild swimming, which she describes as a vital third area for human interplay. Kings finds herself comforted by being in a bunch of individuals silently swimming whereas having fun with the contemplative, solitary area of the water. “It’s an extremely historic, pure setting for human beings,” she mentioned. “Therefore why baptism occurs in water. I think about that began as a result of we really feel so snug in it.” Her studio displays this perception. It’s located on a pontoon on the Thames with a view of the glistening water and boats passing outdoors her window.
Given this inspiration, it might come as a shock that none of her drawings for “Mornings on the Lido” characteristic folks really swimming. She wished to keep away from the everyday clichés, she mentioned: wild seascapes or the glamor of loungers by the pool. She enjoys David Hockney’s paintings of swimming pools, however these really feel very totally different from the expertise she wished to evoke. As a substitute, she photographed an in depth pal altering garments by the water, celebrating an on a regular basis act that at occasions feels clumsy and intimate. These images have been the idea for her gentle, aware drawings, that are cropped intently to her mannequin and infrequently characteristic the encircling wildlife.
Throughout wild swimming, particularly within the winter, the strongest bodily sensations are outdoors the water, Kings defined, as the push of endorphins surges and the pores and skin begins to really feel the chilly. This was the second that was most vital for her to seize in her paintings. She sees this as a metaphorical change that occurs after swimming. “You actually really feel your physique. In regular life, I don’t really feel my physique in such a transparent approach,” she mentioned. Via specializing in this second of dressing, Kings explores the strain between modesty and publicity that surrounds nudity in artwork. In Blue Towel (2025), her topic each reveals and conceals her physique as she dries herself with a towel.
Kings’s drawings are constructed up from a whole lot of tiny coloured marks, making a hazy aesthetic. These drawings, although specializing in the stable human physique, are fluid, their marks dancing earlier than the eyes. It is a time-consuming, meditative course of which mirrors the peaceable expertise of swimming in wild water.
Kings’s gentle type captures the situations round pure our bodies of water as the sunshine shifts or mist hangs over the floor. For this exhibition particularly, Kings was drawn to Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat’s pointillist type, an influence that’s apparent from the layered however in the end particular person nice marks of every drawing. Maybe extra surprisingly, she additionally cited the Op art of Bridget Riley. Kings was fascinated to find that Riley’s works have been knowledgeable by watching the ocean in Cornwall. “They glitter,” she mentioned. “You take a look at Riley’s work and they’re like mild on water. In addition they have an important stillness and readability.”
One other motif all through the works on view is swans, that are a key fixture in Hyde Park. A solo black swan seems in By the Lake (2025), as an illustration, its elegant kind mirrored within the water, watched over by Kings’s topic as she flicks by means of a clean e book. For Kings, these animals sum up the significance of untamed swimming, and the choice view of nature that it offers. As a substitute of watching the birds from the banks as a passive and in the end separate observer, the act of swimming brings folks to their degree, seeing each the swans and surrounding habitat from their perspective. Crucially, this grants a uncommon alternative to be one with nature, tapping into the ample non-human life that flows even by means of our busiest cities.
