Second Exit

(Nur) Aishah Kenton

Self-published in 2019 in conjunction with an
exhibition at Goulburn Regional Gallery, Goulburn, NSW

Printed by Uneven Press

Second Exit examines the richness of colour found across regional and remote areas of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. 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 interest.

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 Kenton 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. Kenton’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, loving and full of life.