John Kenny

Artist biography:

Born: 1975, Manchester, England

Kenny has been documenting ethnic societies in remote regions of sub-Saharan Africa since 2006 documenting tribes that continue to maintain their heritage. His portraits are of proud individuals whose cultural traditions and mastery of their environment have for centuries provided a structure to their lives. As the continent becomes increasingly urbanized and environmental pressures continue to grow on people living at the peripheries of the modern world, such images have become precious and increasingly rare insights into a disappearing world.

His journeys have taken him to the southern valleys and northern desert of Ethiopia, to the harsh scrublands of North West Kenya, across the arid hinterlands of the Sahel in West Africa, and south to the deserts of the Kalahari. His subjects pose in doorways or inside dark village huts. Their faces emerge from the shadows, illuminated by a soft and diffuse natural light. His portraits are testaments to proud histories increasingly threatened by the growth of urbanisation and climate change which in combination, are putting huge strains on traditional ways of life.

John Kenny's work has been exhibited frequently in London as well as at art fairs in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin and Glasgow.