Simon Kenny
Between Light and Emotion
Exploring light, movement and the space between abstraction and imagination, Simon Kenny's paintings invite us to see something different every time we look. As three new works arrive at Startle, we take a closer look at the ideas and instinct behind his distinctive paintings.
There is something immediately recognisable about a Simon Kenny painting, yet describing exactly what we are looking at is altogether more difficult.
A distant horizon, perhaps. Light breaking through a storm. The surface of an unknown landscape. Or something altogether more celestial.
That sense of familiarity without definition lies at the heart of Kenny's work. His paintings aren't intended to depict a particular place or moment. Instead, they leave space for the viewer to find something of their own within them — a memory, an atmosphere, or simply an emotional response.
It is one of the qualities that makes his work so compelling.
A World Unseen draws the eye into a landscape that feels both cosmic and elemental. Luminous blues and misted whites emerge through deeper passages of black, bronze and earth, creating the impression of light breaking across an unknown horizon. Fine, energetic lines travel through the composition, lending movement and connecting its quieter, atmospheric areas with moments of dramatic intensity.
Rather than depicting a recognisable place, Simon Kenny creates a space shaped by feeling, energy and imagination. The shifting forms reveal something different with every viewing, allowing each person to find their own landscape within the work. Presented as a limited edition of 95, it is a captivating example of Kenny’s distinctive lyrical abstraction.
Echoes of Light and The Light Beyond reveal two compelling expressions of Simon Kenny’s lyrical abstraction. In Echoes of Light, cool blues and turquoise tones drift through deeper earthy passages, interrupted by flashes of white that bring energy and illumination to the composition.
The Light Beyond feels more dramatic, with radiant light appearing to emerge from layers of shadow, copper and icy blue. Together, the works move between atmosphere and intensity, suggesting elemental landscapes without defining a single place or meaning. Their depth, expressive marks and shifting forms invite personal interpretation, allowing something new to emerge with every viewing.
Both are beautifully presented framed paper editions, released as an edition of 195.
Inside the Work of Simon Kenny
Beyond the atmosphere of the finished paintings lies an instinctive and highly physical creative process, where colour, texture, light and chance all play their part.
The Art of Uncertainty
Despite the depth and complexity of his finished paintings, Simon Kenny does not begin with a rigid plan for exactly how a work will develop. His process is instinctive, with each stage influencing what comes next.
Areas of underpainting begin to establish atmosphere and depth before stronger layers develop across the canvas. Brushes, transparent glazes and heavily loaded palette knives introduce colour, texture and movement, with earlier passages sometimes partially obscured as the work evolves.
There is also an element of chance. When several colours meet on a palette knife, the exact mark cannot always be predicted. Rather than resisting those unexpected moments, Kenny responds to them, allowing the painting itself to help determine its direction.
It creates a continual balance between control and spontaneity — building, reacting and adjusting until the composition finds its own sense of harmony.
Where Light Begins
Perhaps more than anything else, light gives Simon Kenny's paintings their identity. Areas of deep, atmospheric colour are interrupted by moments of luminosity — a glow on the horizon, a break through darker tones or an intense concentration of light emerging from within the painting.
That effect is built through layers. Transparent colour, changes in tone and areas of raised texture determine the way light travels across the surface, while palette-knife marks catch illumination differently as the viewer moves around the work.
Look closely and the paintings reveal a physical quality that photographs can only partly capture: scraped passages, translucent layers, exposed canvas and areas of heavily worked paint.
It is this relationship between light, surface and atmosphere that allows the work to suggest so much without defining exactly what we are looking at.