Betsy Kenyon

Framed black and white abstract geometric darkroom photograph with circles

2020

Betsy Kenyon lives and works in New York City. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a recipient of a City Artist Corps Grant and has been a visual arts resident at Pioneer Works, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, and Brooklyn Darkroom. She has exhibited in shows internationally and recently had a solo exhibition at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She will be participating in a group show at the United Nations, opening November 2023. Kenyon’s work is a merging of different processes; it challenges distinctions between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional experiences, capturing normally imperceptible time events. Using darkroom techniques as her medium, Kenyon blurs established lines between drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture. Each darkroom print is one of a kind, made without a negative. Even though Kenyon’s works are produced chemically in a darkroom, Kenyon refers to them as “darkroom drawings” because they feel less photographic and more drawing-like to her. Her artwork can be found in the following collections: Centre Georges Pompidou, The Art Institute of Chicago, Photography Collection; Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace Book Collection; Whitney Museum of American Art, Library; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library; Groniger Museum, Special Collections; New York Public Library, Print Collection; and the Yale University, Art and Architecture Library.