Kenny Morris(Siouxsie & The Banshees, 1977-1979)

“A BⒶnshee Left Wailing”
solo exhibition at galleryX Dublin

Can’t make it to the show? You can still collect his works – check out the complete catalogue

Put your glad rags on and join us for an evening with one of the few stars of the early Post-Punk era not to go soft and corporate! Yes, I am looking at you…

Kenny Morris is an investigative documentarian with a modern sensibility and a prescient vision. Life in all its aspects interests him, and art is his interpreter. He favours analogue image-making over the digital medium, often incorporating found objects.

Woven in time and in personal encounters, Kenny’s work appears in various forms, creating a world of experiences, often expressed through semi-abstract expressionism, reflecting – internalised from our environment – what he sees, hears, feels, and senses.

Kenny Morris was at the epicentre of the creative maelstrom that was punk in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he was the drummer in Sid Vicious’s The Flowers of Romance, and he rose to fame as the drummer for Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1977 to 1979, imbuing their sound with his unprecedented technique. In the process, he amassed a large quantity of behind-the-scenes black and white photographs and Super 8 films.

Kenny also studied fine art and graphic design at London’s Camberwell School of Art in 1976, attaining a Grade 1 in his first year, after which he left to write, record, and tour with Siouxsie. Together with John Maybury, he was assistant set designer to Christopher Hobbs on Derek Jarman’s film Jubilee in 1977. He returned to college between 1981 and 1983 to study film-making, obtaining a Grade 1 degree. His short film, La Main Morte, premiered at the International Berlin Film Festival in 1986 and was screened at many other European festivals, with the soundtrack released as an EP by Temple Records in 1987.

As a painter, between 1986 and 1993 Kenny participated in three solo and many group shows in London. Celebrated film director Kenneth Branagh owns three of his works from this era, acquired at his solo show at the Pentonvillle Gallery in 1990. From 1991/1992 he co-produced stage shows for music events at the Astoria in London, before leaving to travel around West Africa.

In 1993, Kenny moved to Ireland. From 1993 to 1997 he taught art and art history in Kildare. In 1995 he joined the Kildare Silken Thomas Drama Group, with which he acted, toured, and engaged in set design, notably for Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, in which he played a leading role. The play went on to win second place in the All-Ireland finals. In 1995 he also opened his own gallery and workshop called Earth’n’Art in Kildare.

Since moving to Cork in 2010, Kenny has held several exhibitions there and in Waterford, including five of his short films and improvised musical performances with his group, The Modern Raze. The current show is his first in Dublin.

A Banshee Left Wailing, the title of this exhibition, is also the title of Kenny’s forthcoming memoir, which is as much as about art, music, and subculture as his life experiences from childhood to the present. The book is scheduled for publication in 2025.