kitchen table

​All images were taken in natural light using medium and large format vintage film cameras loaded with black and white film. Photos were taken of objects from my collection that were placed on my kitchen table in early evening light from the adjacent sash windows.

Publications which feature these works
BETA developments in photography, Issue 2, Dec 2012
F11 Magazine, Issue 27, Nov 2013 

If you would like to purchase any of these museum quality film prints, framed or unframed, please contact me at

​[email protected]

Review of my recent SALA exhibition HEAT
​by John Neylon for The Adelaide Review, August 2020 

“Heat is not always the opposite of cool” – Tony Kearney
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These images have been inspired, as the artist states, by a long-standing fascination with ‘intrinsically beautiful, well-designed and well-engineered products.’ Among these examples, collected and photographed by Kearney, are domestic heaters from the 1930s to the mid twentieth century. An appealing aesthetic feature, for the artist, is that they were designed to fit into Art Deco, Streamlined, Modernist and mid-century homes. They replaced the smoky fireplaces of a colonial to Depression-era past and (in wealthier homes) symbolised prosperity and modern taste.

These are no cheesy, mock-log fire items but true love children of the modern era with its embrace of new materials (such as chromed and painted steel, aluminium, Bakelite) and stream-lined minimalism. A spectacular example is a 1930s fan heater, manufactured by His Masters Voice (HMV) which looks so like a stack of Walkman pods. For those who want to go further behind the scenes – Kearney’s foray into what he calls ‘machine-age archaeology’ has involved lots of even older-school technology – items set up on his kitchen table to catch natural early morning or dusk light, and shooting with a large format, 1950s (Linhof) camera (with a Dallmeyer 3C 1880s portrait brass lens).
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Wow. To a photo/steam punk twitcher such descriptions are pure poetry. Somehow, in such company, that split cycle Panasonic unit, is never going to hold your gaze.