John Kenny

Dansho by John Kenny. C-type Print with Acrylic Mount.

2008

Turmi in southern Ethiopia is one of the largest Hamer settlements. Turmi’s size is due to its dirt road to the outside world, and its location near to water: an ephemeral river floo...

The town of Baragoi is half a day’s drive from Lake Turkana. It is a green oasis amidst a parched landscape. The majority of the town’s inhabitants, including this striking woman, ar...

Print is also available in Medium size: 50'' x 40'' and is priced at $13,000. A black and white photographic print, with uniquely handmade puncture designs by the artist, set in a black shadow box frame. The new series “Punctured Ink” incorporates works from Nyari’s ongoing, portrait project titled “Ink Stories”. “Ink Stories”, which was introduced at Nyari’s very first solo gallery exhibit, consists of large-scale nude photographs that explore the concept of self-identity and female empowerment. The series joins six women together, each who have faced adversity, to demonstrate the creation of a strengthened self-image through tattoos. By highlighting the intricate woven threads of ink on each woman’s skin, Nyari proposes the idea that self-empowerment and reconciliation with one’s traumas can be linked to the act of greeting one’s “own skin” or inventing their own story. Nyari has now elevated these intimate photographs in her new Punctured Ink series through the process of puncturing botanical-like references into the surface of each image (thus making each one of a kind). Her inspiration to physically puncture the previously pristine photographic prints stemmed from a childhood memory that occurred while she was living in Finland: “I remembered my parents had this big pad of paper next to the home phone in Finland and I would use my mother’s sewing needles to poke patterns into the paper”. This nostalgic memory in combination with the longing to apply her physical, painterly abilities resulted in the choice to transform these photographs via puncturing the paper. Unlike painting or drawing on the surface of each print, the raised, brail like holes created leave a permanent result, just as a tattoo does on one’s skin. While the surface of an artwork, like skin, is typically preserved and or avoided, Nyari follows in the subject’s footsteps by purposely destroying the pristine surface in order to create a new narrative. The act taps into a long history of tribal scarification which signified a right of passage, permitting the individual to transcend their past traumas and transforming their evolved selves. This notion grounds all of her works. In addition, Nyari’s choice to puncture nature-based patterns into each portrait also has its own significance. She stated that when “talking about scarification and getting over trauma, to me, nature is one of the most healing and beautiful elements.” As Nyari is emphasizing through her photographs, when you add a personal story onto the skin, it is a whole new layer that often becomes biographical. It translates a story to the audience of one’s past, future and wishes. While this concept existed in her previous photographic series, now, through puncturing the surface of each, Nyari is adding another layer of permanence onto her works’ meaning, therefore becoming, as she calls it “ink cubed”. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Born in 1979 in Helsinki, and raised in Finland and Germany, Nyari came to New York City at the age of seventeen. While here, she studied at the School of Visual Arts where she not only began to model but found her passion for photography. Using inspiration from masters such as Helmut Newton and Cindy Sherman, Nyari’s work employs and explores the traditional ideal of beauty and gender to portray sexuality from a predominately female perspective. She utilizes technical elements such as gestures, nudity, the subject’s gaze, objects and more to link this connection of the empowered feminine identity. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries throughout the United States and Europe and through such exposure, she has received multiple prestigious awards including the first-place winner of the International Photography Awards in 2010, Beauty Pro Category. Her 225-page Monograph titled “Femme Fatale: Female Erotic...

"Mindisayo's Gaze" In this best-selling image, a young women in the Rendille tribe of Northern Kenya wears the unique jewelry and ornamentation of this culturally-rich region. The...