David Mankin lives and works in the south west of Cornwall. His dynamic and vivid abstract landscape paintings not only draw inspiration from the dramatic Cornish coastline; the wild, empty moors; the big skies; but also the raw, physical elements of the landscape including the rocky outcrops; beach boulders; storm debris; winding farm tracks; surging seas and the ancient fields bordered with stone hedges. He enjoys getting out into the landscape and the elements that shape it – wind, sea, rain and man-made. These are the experiences that manifest themselves in his paintings.
“Through my painting I aim to express something of the sensory experience of being in the landscape. Living and working in the far west of Cornwall is uniquely inspirational. Daily walks on the coast path near my studio provide a visual stimulation that can’t help but find its way onto the canvas.
Textures, colours, shapes, sounds, movements and spaces collide to create a wealth of visual and spatial relationships in constant flux. This is my source. The work is both an emotional response to the natural environment and an attempt to communicate a sense of the freedom, the vastness, the rhythm and the ebb and flow of nature, which is characteristic to this part of Cornwall.
I work in an intuitive and gestural way, burying and unearthing marks and textures through an energetic process of destruction and excavation, which mirrors the acts of nature on the landscape. Through the process I explore surface, shape, colour, texture, composition and mark making in order to articulate and form images which express my experiences in the Cornish landscape.”
Mankin has exhibited in London and Cornwall and has shown in a number of London art fairs. His paintings are in numerous private and corporate art collections.