February 2015

The title Staying Power, attached to these two photography exhibitions on opposite sides of London, suggests endurance during the four decades of history covered by the shows. Among these plentiful narratives, street photography is hugely popular and Charlie Phillips, icon of Fifties and Sixties Notting Hill, combed the streets and includes pictures of mixed-race relationships. In contrast, Neil Kenlock shows indoors scenes of Seventies family life with great pride shown towards the decor. Read full Evening Standard review. View Kenlock’s photographs Exhibition: Staying Power: Photographs...


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Neil Kenlock gives us an intimate glimpse into the homes and psyches of 1970s British-Caribbean families, as they pose with their possessions for portraits often sent home to relatives – jubilant proof of a successful emigration. And further into the exhibition, ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s crisp, detailed images showcase the sculptural magnificence of the hairstyles and headties worn by Nigerian women. All of the images are beautiful; all arresting. But there is something more. Read full Telegraph article here. View Kenlock’s photographs Exhibition: Staying Power: Photographs of Black British...


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Kenlock arrived in Britain from the West Indies in 1963, working as a studio portraitist before becoming a staff photographer for West Indian World, one of the first black British newspapers. He chronicled the British Black Panthers in the early 1970s as well as everyday racism – his portrait of a young black woman standing by a door scrawled with the words “Keep Britain White” carries a charge to this day in its merging of the dignified and the obscene. (It is on show at the BCA exhibition in Brixton). More intimate, though, are his portraits of British West Indians at home, posing proudly...


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