“Are these people truly harmful? Is what they are doing unlawful?” Jonny Kemp
Proscribe verb. (of a government or other authority) to condemn or forbid as harmful or unlawful
“Dark marks upon a white page gradually discern themselves as human figures. They seem to be contorted or twisted in almost impossible positions, some appearing to lie flat in mid-air. The space around them threatens to envelope them. There are what looks like handprints on them, but empty handprints of nothingness. They are of all ages, backgrounds, genders. They are united in their impossibility. And yet they appear alone.
In July 2025, the UK government proscribed the group Palestine Action, leading to mass demonstrations of people across the country protesting this decision. They sat peacefully, holding hand-written signs that read ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. The police did what the law determines they should do and moved in to arrest these people; these people were supporting what was now deemed a terrorist organisation, after all. The activists did not resist, but did not give in either: making themselves dead weights, the police were forced to carry them away from the site of protest.
My drawings depict some of these people in the act of being carried. All other contexts have been removed: we simply see the person themselves: no crowds, no sign, no police. We centre on the person, we see them in the moment of arrest, we remember them as human beings who are contorted by the controlling hands and controlling events around them. Are these people truly harmful? Is what they are doing unlawful?”
Jonny Kemp embarked on an artistic career without formal art qualifications. With an English degree and ten years of English teaching behind him, he has gone on to become an award-winning artist, having appeared on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 and taken a Fine Art Foundation and Masters degree, graduating from City and Guilds of London School of Art in September 2025.
Through two parallel practices of oil paint and pen, he asks what portraiture is capable of in the 2020s and how it can be used to investigate and see new truths in our contemporary society by finding historical parallels and patterns in both human behaviour and the artworks which have documented it.
Opening times: West Norwood Picturehouse | West Norwood Cinema | Showtimes
