David Penny

David Penny (1979)

David Penny is a photo artist and lecturer in Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His practice encompasses photography, moving image, and sculptural installation. He redefines the boundaries of photography through a unique, cameralless technique that merges science and art. By bridging laboratory methods with artistic intuition he offers a fresh and speculative perspective – thinking expansively around photography, materiality, objects, and their images.
Several of the works from the abstract photographic prints have been made without the use of a camera, recording light from within a nanophotonics laboratory. Sheets of photographic film interrupt or are placed in proximity to high-powered lasers that are shaped and directed around a system built for nanomaterials research. In this way, photograms are produced – positive or negative images of object silhouettes created directly on photographic paper without the use of a camera. They are made using a contact method by placing objects directly onto the photographic paper and exposing them to a directed light source or through a projection technique. The creation of the works involves handmade, analogue, and photographic processes.

David Penny holds a Master’s degree in Photography from the University of Westminster and has a PhD by Practice from Manchester School of Art at MMU with the thesis “Pictures of Things and Things that are Pictures”, which was published in SOURCE magazine as a portfolio titled “Fragments, Monoliths, Portals”. Since 2015, he has been a Senior Lecturer and Photography Programme Leader at SODA – School of Digital Arts Manchester School of Art. Since 2011, he has organized 6 solo shows and participated in 17 group shows in the UK, Georgia, Greece, Shangai and Switzerland. David Penny regularly participates in conferences and research projects.
Most significant projects and exhibitions in recent years: “Scatterings” (2025, The Arcade, Bush House, London, UK); “Carpet Land, Critical Tapestries” (2024, Kunstall Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium); “Threads” (2023, Arnolfini– Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts, Bristol, UK); “A Fallen Line of Marble Drums” (2022, Tbilisi Art Fair, Tbilisi, Georgia; SNEHTA, Athens, Greece); “Screen for Another Focus”(2019, OXO Tower, London, UK; Dovecot Gallery, Edinburg, Scotland; REMOTE WORK (2021, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, UK); “Paper Geographies” (2020, Manchester Central Library, Manchester, UK).
His work is included in public collections at Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, UK) and Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool, UK).