Using cameraless techniques Paul Kenny creates abstract compositions using small glass plates on which he places collected objects. Although the natural materials he selects are found on beaches all over the world Kenny returns frequently to the beaches of Wester Ross in north-west Scotland and near his home in Northumberland. Each plate is scanned to produce large-scale photographs rich with opalescent colours, which take on the form of imagined landscapes.
A pure beauty derives from their direct relationship with the objects they depict. Building on themes of fragility and transience in the landscape, Kenny’s work deals with the universal through abstraction. Each image avoids representation evoking rather than describing – not windows on the world, but rather as fragments of it with their own colour, texture, shape and provenance.
‘I try to find the awe-inspiring in that which is easily passed by. I aim for each print to be a beautiful, irresistible, thought provoking object.’ He has work in major public and private collections including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, the National Photography Collection, the National Gallery of Scotland and the V&A.
