It’s a hot day in Hammersmith, all burning tarmac and brittle grass. But in Tarka Kings’ studio, located on a pontoon on the Thames, a mood of cool serenity presides. The artist’s workspace rocks gently beneath our feet, its windows revealing an ever-changing view of the river. Rowers speed back and forth while swans drift in slow, haughty circles.
By the Lake, 2025, by Tarka Kings © Tarka Kings. Courtesy Offer Waterman. Photograph, Matthew Hollow
Getting Dressed I, 2024, by Tarka Kings © Tarka Kings. Courtesy Offer Waterman. Photograph, Matthew Hollow
It’s a fitting location to preview Kings’ new body of work, showing at Offer Waterman from late September. Mornings at the Lido is a tightly focused set of drawings, all featuring the same woman getting changed at the Serpentine. In some of the images she is readying herself for the swim ahead. In others, she is towelling off or pulling on her socks.
Kings has been swimming at the lido in Hyde Park most mornings for five years, through winter frosts and scorching summers. “It’s like starting each day anew,” says the London-born artist. “You’ve clicked into something deeper, more mysterious. You get in touch with being in your body.” But when she started thinking about how to depict her experience, she encountered a problem. How do you capture the feeling of swimming? From a first-person perspective, the eyeline is mainly ducks and water. Zoom out to watch from the sidelines and it’s all bobbing heads and murky, refracted limbs.
