Archive of Author | Garry Kennard

About Garry Kennard

Garry Kennard
Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). Born in London in 1948 he has exhibited his paintings in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Winchester and at Petworth House as artist in residence at the 2009 Petworth Festival. His paintings are in many private collections in UK, France and the United States, and in the collection of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He recently completed a series of portraits of women scientists commissioned by The Royal Society, London. A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture. In 2013 GV Art published a book of his writing and paintings called ‘Essays and Images’. Kennard has an interest in mountaineering and has climbed in the Alps and Africa, as well as leading his own expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas. www.garrykennard.com

www.garrykennard.com

Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). Born in London in 1948 he has exhibited his paintings in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Winchester and at Petworth House as artist in residence at the 2009 Petworth Festival. His paintings are in many private collections in UK, France and the United States, and in the collection of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He recently completed a series of portraits of women scientists commissioned by The Royal Society, London.  A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture. In 2013 GV Art published a book of his writing and paintings called ‘Essays and Images’. Kennard has an interest in mountaineering and has climbed in the Alps and Africa, as well as leading his own expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas.

 

Articles with Garry Kennard

CIRCLINGS

CIRCLINGS shows examples of a new book of drawings by Garry Kennard, which were prompted by the final lines of the last canto of Dante’s Divine Comedy. These words describe the vision that Dante experiences at end of his journey through hell, purgatory and paradise. They tell of his witnessing the creative power at the heart of creation. In this he sees a great circling of reflected spheres and rainbows and, somehow, the human image within it all. The article includes the preface by Paul Broks, clinical neuropsychologist-turned-writer.

Memory: What exactly happened?

Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture.

The Encounter: A new play by Complicite/Simon McBurney (review)

Simon McBurney’s new play, The Encounter, transports us into the humid depths of the Amazon, his storytelling served by the enveloping presence of binaural technology. In 1969, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre became hopelessly lost in a remote part of the Brazilian rainforest while searching for the Mayoruna people. His encounter was to test his perception of the world, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus.

Threading scenes of his own life with details of McIntyre’s journey, McBurney incorporates objects and sound effects into this solo performance to evoke a rainforest landscape. Transmitted direct to the audience through provided headphones, the show’s ground-breaking sound design plugs into the power of the imagination, questioning our perceptions of time, communication and our own consciousness.

In Their Right Minds: The Lives and Shared Practices of Poetic Geniuses (a review by Garry Kennard)

In 1976, Julian Jaynes proposed that the language of poetry and prophecy originated in the right, “god-side” of the brain. Current neuroscientific evidence confirms the role of the right hemisphere in poetry, a sensed presence, and paranormal claims as well as in mental imbalance. Left-hemispheric dominance for language is the norm. An atypically enhanced right hemisphere, whether attained through genetic predisposition, left-hemispheric damage, epilepsy, childhood or later traumas, can create hypersensitivities along with special skills. Dissociative Others may arise unbidden or be coaxed out through occult practices. Based on nearly twenty years of scientific and literary research, this book enters the atypical minds of poetic geniuses Blake, Keats, Hugo, Rilke, Yeats, Merrill, Plath and Hughes by way of the visible signs in their lives, beliefs, and shared practices.

Paying attention – the disappearance of Rosa

Paying attention – the disappearance of Rosa ‘One way to achieve a more tranquil state of consciousness is through aesthetic perception. This is a special state of perceptual consciousness, where we apprehend some spatio-temporal object and discern through this object, the Platonic Idea that corresponds to the type of object in question. In this special […]

The flowers of Dolpo

Garry Kennard is a painter, writer and founding director of Art and Mind (www.artandmind.org). A fascination with how the brain reacts to works of art has lead Kennard to research, write and lecture on these topics. With Rita Carter and Annabel Huxley he devised and directed the unique Art and Mind Festivals which attracted leading artists and scientists to explore what light the brain sciences can throw on contemporary culture. He has an interest in mountaineering and has climbed in the Alps and Africa, as well as leading his own expeditions to the Nepalese Himalayas.

Open Letter to the Tate

“This letter was sent to Dr Penelope Curtis, director of Tate Britain, on 6 December 2014. Although addressing what I see as problems with that particular gallery display, I believe the issues raised have a much wider application, not only in the visual arts but in a wider cultural setting. And I believe they are of profound importance”. Garry Kennard