Between Storms and Stillness: David Mankin’s Interludes
- jackieholmsartist
- Sep 14
- 4 min read
Dates: 6th September to 1st October 2025
Location: &Gallery, Edinburgh
Interludes offers a compelling meditation on the Cornish coast—not as a place, but as a rhythm. Through layered abstraction and gestural mark-making, David Mankin captures the emotional texture of fleeting moments: the hush before a wave breaks, the shimmer of light between storms, the quiet resonance of memory.
Each canvas feels like a sensory pause, a visual interlude where atmosphere takes precedence over form - a respectful nod to the emotional connection to landscape that shifting memory brings. The works are rich with contradiction—fullness and space, control and freedom, simplicity and complexity—all held in tension through a painterly language that is both intuitive and deliberate.
The compositions evoke emotional rhythm without relying on literal representation. Mankin’s background in graphic design informs a subtle structural awareness, yet the energy of the paint application resists containment. The result is a body of work that feels alive, transitional, and deeply personal.
Standout pieces like Pull of the Tide and Fly Closer to the Sea invite reflection—not just on landscape, but on the nature of perception itself. These are not paintings to be decoded—they are spaces to inhabit.
Chatting to David at the gallery was a highlight. His openness about process and emotional intent added depth to the viewing experience, reinforcing the idea that abstraction can be a powerful conduit for memory and meaning.
Process and Practice
David explained that the exhibition is entitled Interludes because his painting process often begins with a walk—sometimes a long one—during which he experiences what he calls “interludes of beauty.” These are moments of communion with the environment that cause him to stop, feel, think, and experience—whether it’s a grand view or an intimate encounter with grasses, rocks, or flora.
He spoke of taking photographs of these moments or pausing to sketch in pencil or Neocolor crayon. Painting outdoors, he said, can be cumbersome, so he prefers to work with a minimal set of materials. Back in the studio, he prints his photographs in grid form, cuts them up, and curates them into sketchbooks along with his sketches and found objects. Collage becomes a way to respond to these images, often combining fragments from different interludes into a single painting. Each moment retains its original meaning and evokes a sense of place - a moment of beauty.
His photographs are often abstracted to begin with, and cutting and collaging them allows for further abstraction. He spoke of pushing his paintings more in recent years—not being afraid to obliterate earlier layers and embracing the surprise that new mediums and techniques bring.
While his approach to painting is one of complete freedom, his background in graphic design provides a compositional discipline. Line and structure play with painterly freedom to create the unique cadence of his work.
When I asked David what was next for him and whether pure abstraction was a direction he would take David shared that, although some of his smaller works lean more toward pure abstraction focusing as they do on elemental aspects of space, he still feels the need to retain the narrative of his experience - this is his connection to his work - or through his work to the viewer. His semi-abstractions hint at space, element, and shared experience, but always carry his emotional connection to the landscape. This presence—his voice—is what gives the work its resonance.
Highlights from the Exhibition
The energy and vigour of the works are striking. They are visceral in their application and semi-abstracted imagery. Many are large (over 100cm square), with one very large piece—Another Day Leaves the Cove (160cm square). They inhabit a space where you can almost see the crashing waves around you, feel the wind in your face, and hear the cries of gulls as you walk through the exhibition.
David mentioned that he maintains close relationships with some collectors who tell him how they “live” with his work. I imagine that to have a Mankin painting on your wall is to be reminded of the resilience of life on the Cornish coast - and everywhere - and to be renewed daily by clear light, vibrant colours, and invigorating energy. You certainly woudn’t need your morning coffee!
Standout pieces for me included:
In the Wide Glimmering Sea (122cm square): A canvas full of light that flooded the gallery with the Cornish sky. Highly textured, with white light shimmering atop liquid blue. A patch of pure turquoise draws the eye to the middle distance, intercrossed by citrus orange lines sketching abstracted elements and hinting at a horizon. A feast of richly patterned textures and visual delights that made me want to run my hands over it's surface.
Soft Sweep of the Breathless Bay (40cm square): A zing of oranges and pinks intercrossed by a streak of sky blue. A fauvist celebration of pure colour, interlaced with charcoal and printed elements that dance across the surface and gradually reveal themselves from the layers beneath.
Unfolding (40cm square): A celebration of the power of the sea in deep turquoise and whites, mixed and sculpted on the canvas. The energy in the paint application translates as pure sea energy—wiped, scraped, and etched with what at first appears to hint at perspective which draws you in but on closer examination appear as abstracted structural elements embedded into the wet paint which interact with underlying layers in an organic dance that keeps the painting alive.
Final Reflections
David Mankin walks a perfectly balanced line between landscape and abstraction, evoking the colour, light, and energy of the Cornish coast in a way that becomes deeply personal for every viewer. For me, it recalls my upbringing on an island off the West Coast of Scotland—and what I’ve yearned for ever since I left. His paintings connect us to the wild nature we all share and offer a brief interlude from the troubles of the world. These works are more physical and emotional than cerebral. This is an exhibition for the subconscious mind—so leave your intellect at home and go and experience it. You’ll feel all the better for it.
Exhibition Details
Interludes is showing at &Gallery on Dundas Street, Edinburgh until 1st October 2025. Free entry.
Books
Remembering in Paint by Kate Reeve-Edwards
Language of Paint — releasing October 2025, exploring Mankin’s evolving visual vocabulary and emotional syntax across the past five years
- Available from Sansom & Co
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