South, London
Kingsley Ifill
Blue Roan
Hannah BarryBlue Roan is the first solo exhibition by Kingsley Ifill at Hannah Barry Gallery and the artist’s first solo show of photography in the UK. The 18 works that make up the exhibition have been selected from some 15 years of Ifill’s multidisciplinary practice - startling images of horses, nudes, snakes, birds, sleeping, running, riding, boxing - presented as a series of eight large-scale paintings on linen and canvas where images are screen-printed directly in acrylic onto the material’s raw surface; and nine platinum palladium works printed on handmade Japanese Washi paper, each in its own wooden frame carved with intricate patterns in low relief on a solid background. The title of the show Blue Roan is Romany slang, an expression passed down from his maternal grandfather. ‘Blue Roan’ can describe a combination of two separate parts, together as one or as Ifill puts it: “Non place as place. A name for the nameless. Neither here, nor there, but somewhere”. The exhibition as a whole is Ifill’s celebration of the photograph in its own right, but also his consideration how far he might push a photograph as an object. Kingsley Ifill (b. 1988, Kent, UK) lives and works in Herne Bay, Kent, UK. Kingsley Ifill has a multidisciplinary practice, predominantly focused on process-based photography and incorporating painting, printmaking, artist books and sculpture. Ifill’s images are immediate and arresting, known for compositional austerity and analogue textures. He carries out all aspects of the creative process by hand, from developing film to printing and bookmaking. Using a combination of techniques including screen printing, photocopying, printing and assemblage, his photography is used to create large-scale mixed-media canvases. Bookmaking is a significant part of Ifill’s practice – many of which he makes by hand in small editions in his studio. Ifill also is known for his portraiture, most recently photographing Skepta, Emma d’Arcy and Cillian Murphy. His work has been published in AnOther Magazine, The Face Magazine, D Republica, Pop Magazine and he regularly contributes to Arena Homme +. He has also shot special projects commissioned by Vivienne Westwood (2024) and Rick Owens (2023).