Born and educated in Salford, in the Northwest of England, Paul Kenny completed his Fine Art Degree at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1975. However, he did not start exhibiting his work until 1991.

Kenny’s ‘cameraless’ and experimental photographs and ‘scannergrams’ are often inspired by the rural coastal settings where he has lived and worked. They combine industrial materials and natural elements to produce intensely detailed abstract images that comment upon environmental issues. He has noted:

‘The work, building on themes developed over fifty years, tries to find the awe-inspiring in that which is easily passed by. It contains issues of fragility, beauty and transience in the landscape: marks and scars left by man and the potential threat to the few remaining areas of wilderness. Looking at the micro and thinking about the macro, I aim for each print to be a beautiful, irresistible, thought-provoking object.’

Lines of Communication was created using plastic, copper wire and seawater all collected on the beach at Downpatrick Head on the North-West Mayo Coast in Ireland. Kenny first started working with found plastic during a residency and fellowship there in 2000 at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation. For this work, he cut a section from a plastic bottle and flattened it the size of a 5 x 4 inch negative. The flattened plastic was then used a base on which to dry sea water, forming salt crystals, and to lay on top strands of corroded copper wire. The ensemble was placed on a scanner to capture an image which was then printed onto paper.

Copper wire is used in undersea cables that are vital for communication networks. The lines, edges and scratches from the unfolded plastic bottle suggest horizon lines. The work thus becomes an abstracted representation of a landscape and seascape threaded with communication networks, while also signalling the environmental impact of plastic and metal waste products.