Ingvar Kenne lives and works in Sydney. His practice moves across image-making, film, and long-form narrative, resisting fixed categorisation in favour of an approach grounded in experience, duration, and encounter.
He studied at the University of Gothenburg and first came to prominence with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Borås, in 1992. Since then, his work has been presented internationally and throughout Australia, including sustained engagement with the National Portrait Gallery, where his work is held in the permanent collection. In 2009, his portrait of his sons received the National Photographic Portrait Prize, and his work has been selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in both 2020 and 2024.
Kenne’s published works, including Citizen portraits 1997–2012, extend his practice into book form, where sequencing and accumulation become central. Across these projects, the image is less an end point than a trace of lived time.
A formative two-and-a-half-year motorcycle journey in the early 1990s shaped his enduring engagement with movement, distance, and the shifting conditions of place. That experience continues to underpin an ongoing body of work, a portrait of [country], in which Kenne navigates remote and often inaccessible environments. These works register the land not as subject, but as presence—holding within them the tensions of history, erasure, and persistence.
Alongside this, his first feature-length film, The Land (2021), expands these concerns into a durational, cinematic form. Premiering internationally, the film was awarded Best Direction at the Snowdance Film Festival in 2022.
Across all mediums, Kenne’s practice is unified by rigour and discipline, exercising his sustained attention to how images both still and moving, can hold the weight of time, memory, and place.
b. 1965, Sweden.
He studied at the University of Gothenburg and first came to prominence with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Borås, in 1992. Since then, his work has been presented internationally and throughout Australia, including sustained engagement with the National Portrait Gallery, where his work is held in the permanent collection. In 2009, his portrait of his sons received the National Photographic Portrait Prize, and his work has been selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in both 2020 and 2024.
Kenne’s published works, including Citizen portraits 1997–2012, extend his practice into book form, where sequencing and accumulation become central. Across these projects, the image is less an end point than a trace of lived time.
A formative two-and-a-half-year motorcycle journey in the early 1990s shaped his enduring engagement with movement, distance, and the shifting conditions of place. That experience continues to underpin an ongoing body of work, a portrait of [country], in which Kenne navigates remote and often inaccessible environments. These works register the land not as subject, but as presence—holding within them the tensions of history, erasure, and persistence.
Alongside this, his first feature-length film, The Land (2021), expands these concerns into a durational, cinematic form. Premiering internationally, the film was awarded Best Direction at the Snowdance Film Festival in 2022.
Across all mediums, Kenne’s practice is unified by rigour and discipline, exercising his sustained attention to how images both still and moving, can hold the weight of time, memory, and place.
b. 1965, Sweden.
Ingvar Kenne
Barkindji, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi Country [Lake Mungo NP, NSW], 2022
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Dharug Country [Grose Wilderness, Blue Mountains NP, NSW], 2023
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Pandanus on Ninene Country [Western Arthurs, Blue Southwest NP, Tasmania], 2023
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Didthul, Yuin Country [Pigeon House Mountain, Morton NP, NSW], 2023-2024
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Koonalda Cave on Mirning Country [Nullarbor NP, SA], 2022
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag pape
Ingvar Kenne
Karlu Karlu on Warumungu, Kaytetye, Alyawarr and Warlpiri Country [Devils Marbles, NT], 2023
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Mutitjulu Waterhole at Uluru, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Country [NT], 2023
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Yarretyeke, Arrernte Country [Redbank Gorge, West Macdonnell Ranges, NT], 2023
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Wurngomgu Country [Kakadu NP, NT], 2025
From the series: a portrait of [country]
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Ingvar Kenne
Installation Image, Melbourne Art Fair 2026
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All prints available in 3 sizes:
Small: 54 x 44cm (framed), 50 x 40 cm (paper size), Ed of 12 + 2A
Medium: 104 x 84cm (framed), 100 x 80 cm (paper size), Ed of 7 + 2A
Large: 154 x 124 cm (framed), 150 x 120 cm (paper size), Ed of 4 + 2AP
2026.
Melbourne Art Fair 2026.
2025.
Whiteout.
Obsession, Ingvar Kenne, Raukura Turei & Brian Rochefort.
Melbourne Art Fair 2025.
2024.
Ingvar Kenne & Joseph Williams.
All prints available in 3 sizes:
Small: 54 x 44cm (framed), 50 x 40 cm (paper size), Ed of 12 + 2A
Medium: 104 x 84cm (framed), 100 x 80 cm (paper size), Ed of 7 + 2A
Large: 154 x 124 cm (framed), 150 x 120 cm (paper size), Ed of 4 + 2AP
Exhibitions:
2026.
Melbourne Art Fair 2026.
2025.
Whiteout.
Obsession, Ingvar Kenne, Raukura Turei & Brian Rochefort.
Melbourne Art Fair 2025.
2024.
Ingvar Kenne & Joseph Williams.