I’ve been experiencing the drama of the green world since arriving in Plymouth in 2021. I’m excited to share this work in my next exhibition, A Manifesto of Painting at Mirror Gallery, Arts University Plymouth.
Painting is a human language
From the dawn of time, materials and our imaginations have fused to create truly remarkable paintings and drawings – visual poetry that communicates a hidden realm. This is my manifesto of painting, created over the last five years in Devon.
What’s happened to painting?
During the 1990s, the UK saw the rise of BritArt. As art schools were swallowed up by universities, more theoreticians started to work in our art and design departments. As a practitioner within academia, I began to feel like a lone voice. I was told ‘painting is dead.’
Fast-forward to 2025 and painting has re-emerged and is, once again, thriving. As a result, expressive figurative painting flourishes alongside abstract painting, with full freedom for individual expression and experimentation across mediums. Consequently, painting is flourishing around the world.
Painting is counterculture
In this age of technological advancement, painting is slow and counterculture. It’s a refreshing non-electrical, physical activity. Simply put, painting is just mud on canvas, at odds with our instantaneous taking and sharing of pictures.
Above all, I am so grateful to Arts University Plymouth for trusting me with this precious jewel of Painting, Drawing and Printmaking. Student numbers are booming on one of the few remaining painting degrees in the UK.
How did this start?
As a young teacher at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1990s, I noticed that many of my students were struggling with colour. Firstly, I wanted them to understand colour as paint. I posed the question, is colour a language? And, if it is, how can I help my students become literate in this language?
So, I started to read Wittgenstein’s work on language. I understood from him that at the heart of language was practice, not theory. He called this observation ‘the making of language-games’. Making a painting is identical. It’s like making a meal where a specific, limited number of ingredients are chosen, depending on the time of day. This is but a small part of the language of cooking each meal, and yet, each meal defines a part of us: our culture, difference and tastes. It is a human way of life that we all share. Likewise, painting is another human way of life. Each painting is just a part of that great human language of silent communication outside of words – painting.
Colour is a language
To help others find a way into colour as a language, I produced two hand-painted colour boxes, ‘An Alphabet’ and ‘A Colour Grammar’. These teaching tools give artists a vocabulary for colour and the confidence to express their ideas. Each colour of the spectrum, from Red to Violet, has its own matching earth colour.
Colour is paint
Colour is a material, an actual substance – it is physical paint. Consequently, painting is an immersive, sensory experience, an embodied art form. This is why I make my own paint. Therefore, I encourage students to do the same because, when they engage with the physicality of paint, alchemy takes place, and they can make equivalents for emotions and memories.
30-year journey into colour, 1995 – 2025
Everything I have made since 1995 has been part of my journey into colour. From 2000 to 2005, I went on to create 22 diptychs representing A Colour Grammar; then, 22 sculptures as Colour Forms; and from 2007 onwards, explorations into Red and Orange, then a Warm / Cold Contrast, Yellow, and then a Light / Dark Contrast (my Conversation with Milton’s Paradise Lost). The colour Green has been my subject since arriving in Plymouth, culminating in my thesis A Manifesto of Painting. In summary, I call this my thesis because, as a painter, I should not be expected to squeeze my visual language into words by writing a doctorate.
Show within a show
On top of this, there will be a small show-within-the-show. Here you will find a film covering each era of my journey into colour. Huge thanks to local filmmaker, Jake Cauty, for capturing this experience.
Essay by Dr Richard Davey
I’m so thankful for all the thought and time that has gone into this new essay by Dr Richard Davey, Senior Research Fellow at Nottingham School of Art and Design.
What’s on
If you love painting, why not combine your visit with two other painting shows on the doorstep?
John Lyons will be at The Box and Danny Fox at The Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth.
Manifesto of Painting runs at Mirror Gallery from Friday 11th April to Saturday 31st May, Monday – Thursday: 9am – 5pm, Friday: 9am – 4:30pm, Saturday: 9am – 1pm, and closed Sunday.
Other upcoming events
Join us for:
In Conversation with Dr Richard Davey, Arts Cinema Plymouth: Monday 28th April, 5.30-6.30pm
In Conversation with Dr Chris Cook, Mirror Gallery: 5.30-7.30pm
