Gianna Dispenza: Overcome by Joy
5 May - 5 June 2021
Charles Moffett
511 Canal Street, NYC

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CLICK HERE TO ACCESS DROPBOX FOLDER OF HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES
See checklist linked below for artwork info. For install shots and studio images, credit is included in the file title.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CHECKLIST OF WORKS ON VIEW

Charles Moffett is pleased to present Overcome by Joy, a solo presentation of eight never-exhibited works by London-based visual artist Gianna Dispenza (b. 1990, Washington State) that principally explore the emotional complexity of safe spaces, as well as how emotive readings of figurative subject matter can be altered when context is added or removed.

Four bodies of work are represented in the show. One of the bodies is three of Dispenza’s ‘Bather’ paintings, which update the art historical archetype of ‘bathers at a water’s edge’ by imbuing it with the artist’s personal connection to a women’s-only swimming pond (for both cis and trans women) that she frequents near her London home. The paintings use the pond, and its varied patrons, as a narrative device to explore the emotional complexity of safe spaces. Whereas ‘bather’s at a water’s edge’ paintings have traditionally been rendered from a voyeuristic perspective, Dispenza approaches them as a member of the community she is depicting.

Another body of work—the titular painting included, along with a ten-foot triptych—remove the figurative subjects of newspaper photos from their provided contexts (Overcome by Joy, for instance, offers open-ended emotive readings into what was originally a photo of tennis player Andy Murray collapsed in ecstasy after a major victory).

Formally, Dispenza prioritizes tone, texture, and the non-hierarchical treatment of the picture plane. She explains that working exclusively in grayscale contributes to a mood of the work which “may not intuitively align with the freedom and joyousness from which they arose.” Dispenza states that the point of the works is not necessarily to reflect on the moment that inspired them, but rather the reason the moment was special: the unsettling rarity.

A preview of works on view is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Image reuse must be with credit to Charles Moffett, unless otherwise noted in the file title.