Kenyatta Kelechi

Kenyatta Kelechi was born and raised in a highly photogenic place: Kailua, Oʻahu. Yet his art practice turns our attention away from landscapes, seascapes, or people. Kenyatta, instead, chooses the material nature of photography itself as his subject. To do this he capitalizes on the side effects of chemically based photographic processes––finding striking compositions amongst material separations and chemical reactions that are typically the bane of representational photography. Relinquishing the need for total control and collaborating with process. The artist is currently meddling with the nineteenth-century method of wet plate collodion, or what is commonly referred to as “tintype” photography. Kenyatta received his BFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2016. He can still be found there in the photography lab, assisting students, and mixing chemicals.