Meet the Artist with Simon Kenny

Simon Kenny is coming to Clarendon Fine Art on Davygate for a Meet the Artist evening on Friday 9 October, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. It's a free event, so you can just turn up and chat with him about his work without needing to book ahead.

Kenny is a multi-award-winning abstract painter, known both here and internationally for his vibrant, expressive style. He works within lyrical abstraction, and recent press has called him a 'radical Turner' — a nod to the landscape tradition he's working with, even if the results are far from traditional. Lately, a growing collection of his 'colour burst' paintings has been drawing a fair bit of attention, so that's likely what you'll see on the walls.

There's a good story attached to his work, too. Stephen Hawking once admired one of his pieces and remarked, 'It looks like everything about space I cannot explain.' It's a fitting description for the kind of painting he does — big, bold, and leaning into the things that are hard to put into words.

If you've never been to a Meet the Artist night, the format is pretty straightforward: the artist is there in person, and you can walk around the work and talk to them about how it came together. It's a bit more direct than just reading a wall plaque, and you get to hear from the person who actually painted the things you're looking at. The evening runs from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at Clarendon Fine Art on Davygate, and it's free to attend.