< Artists
Aishah Kenton
(Nur) Aishah Kenton (b.1998) grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Aishah graduated from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2018), where she majored in photography at the School of Art and Design.
In 2018 Aishah was awarded an Emerging Artist Support Scheme Award for her graduating exhibition To Whom it May Concern. The award was given by the Goulburn Regional Gallery, where her series of work was exhibited in 2019/20.
Aishah was a finalist in the 2017 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women and in 2020 was awarded a coveted spot in the 2020 Chico Portfolio Review in Montana, USA.
In 2020 Aishah joined Oculi, the Australian photographic collective.
Humidity (2021)
Second Exit (2019)
Aishah Kenton’s new series Second Exit examines the richness of colour found across the interior regional and remote areas of southern Australia. This series explores the unique power of the photographic image, revealing an artist reaching for an elusive present while framing it within an ambiguous sense of the past.
Kenton explores the world as she encounters it, often including her husband in the photographs she makes. While Second Exit speaks of an unfamiliar environment to the artist - that of outback Australia - Kenton never fails to appreciate the subjects she finds within her own reach; the all too-easily ignored moment of filling up the car, or resting in a motel room. Even a towel on a caravan door doesn't escape her visual interests.
Aishah Kenton | Second Exit exhibition installation, Goulburn Regional Gallery, NSW (2019). Recipient of the 2018 Emerging Artist Support Scheme Award at her 2018 ANU Graduating exhibition.
The subjects in Second Exit weren’t chosen to represent a particular theme or circumstance relating to the Australian bush narrative; far from it, in fact. The only intention Aishah had when making this set of photographs was to explore the medium of photography itself, for the first time in colour. It just so happened that this recent interest in colour photography coincided with a planned road tip with her husband, the couple travelling over 10,000km across South East Australia in just under two months.
A diary filled with visual explorations of colour and intrigue, Second Exit will forever be associated with the artist’s first visit through the Australian interior. Aishah’s photographs are the results of her own visual investigations, a fixed lens showing things as they are and as she saw them; unromantic and sparse, yet loving and full of life.
Education
2018 Ba. Visual Arts (major Photomedia)
School of Art & Design, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
Exhibitions
2020 One Another, Contour 556 / Canberra’s Public Art Biennial, ACT. (upcoming)
2020 Second Exit, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW.
2019 Her / A Female Anthology, Brunswick Street Galley, VIC.
2019 Backyard exhibition, ACT.
2019 Tributary @ Pilot, ACT.
2019 Herstory M16, ACT.
2018 Keep The Fire Burning: Celebrating Five Years of Hillvale, VIC.
2018 ANU School of Art & Design Graduation Exhibition, ACT.
2018 Mt Fuji & Everything Else, Eden Road Wines, Murrumbateman, NSW.
2018 Mt Fuji & Everything Else (Points of View: Artists in the landscape), TPR Gallery, ACT.
2017 Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women, Brightspace Gallery, VIC.
2017 Backyard exhibition, ACT.
2017 Inside/Outside, The Photography Room, ACT.
Artist Books
2020 One, Another
2019 Second Exit
2018 To Whom it May Concern
2018 I Love You
Accolades
2020 Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review
2018 Australian National University EASS (Emerging Artists Support Scheme) Award, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.
2017 Finalist, Maggie Diaz Photography Prize for Women.
Published
2020 Find Rangers Issue 22: Submission Based Photography Magazine
2020 Canberra Times: Feb 3rd, Canberra photographer Aishah Kenton
Captures international attention with photographs of her relationship
2020 Canberra Times: Jan 20, Exhibition Review: Second Exit, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.
2017 Art Monthly Australasia Special 300th edition: Celebrating 30 years of art in Australasia.
Work Experience
2017-2020 Editorial photography assistant
2019 Craft ACT, Internship
2018-2019 TPR Gallery, Curator
2018 TPR Gallery, Year Long Personal Documentary Workshop assistant
2016-2017 TPR Gallery, Gallery Assistant
Volunteering
2016-19 Art Monthly Australasia Magazine
2016 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) Annual Conference