It's such an honour to be selected out of so many artists to make this painting of such
an iconic ancient Cornish landmark.
My main external source for my work is the Cornish landscape, very much the sensory experience
of being in the landscape.
My name is David Mankin and I'm an artist in a small village in the wild west of Cornwall
called Perranuthnoe.
The kind of things that really excite me are the flux and the change in the landscape
the shapes, the textures, the moods of the landscape that we all respond to in our own individual ways.
When I come into the studio it's more about the process and the paint, and almost like
remembering with paint what I've experienced in the landscape so I tend to start off with
a kind of explosion of mark making and gestural marks, they're almost like sensory fragments
that I've picked up in the landscape and then I'm using those on my canvases on my paper
trying to build a composition.
Today for example - those colours - that was so strong and all that beautiful golden seaweed
on the beach that you saw against the grey rocks and those little sparks of colour from
the fishing lines and so on, that kind of lodges in my mind and that'll come back somehow.
It's those things that I might think 'that shape that I saw on that - I'll do that'
maybe huge on a canvas and just see where that takes me and that's the exciting thing because it's
like you're taking that fragment and then you're exploding it or taking a risk with
that fragment in a sensory perspective and then something else happens so then that whole
creative process develops.
I start off in a very gestural way which to me is a kind of reflection of the landscape
there's so much change and movement in the landscape that I try and replicate that in
some of my pictures. That's why I change the paintings, I move the paintings forward it's
almost like mimicking the action of the landscape.
It's all those things that I find really interesting, the ebb and flow, the rhythm out there
the pulse of the landscape.
When I received the brief it was a very, very exciting prospect for me because Tintagel
is beautiful and I was very, very taken with the site.
The patina of age and drama that you can't not be inspired, and it certainly did inspire me so
I took probably over a hundred photographs that day.
I brought those back to my studio and started sketching small black and white sketches, really
looking at texture and line and structure for the brief which gave me a sense of the
site and what I was after and then I decided to do six works on paper at A3 size. There
was two or three that I really, really liked and I put those forward and luckily one was
accepted so it's very, very exciting to be working on this amazing project.
This bit I found the other day. I just love that, I just love the shape of it, the mystery
of where this bit of wood has travelled. That texture has been achieved by years of the
sea buffeting that. That texture you can only achieve that by working on it and that's what
I try and do.
Peter Lanyon, a famous Cornish artist, made this quote: "Beachcombing is a favourite activity
of mine and for me a painter is a kind of beachcomber".
Originally I was brought to Cornwall by my parents when I was very young, and then I came
back to Cornwall in the late seventies I suppose, early eighties with some university friends
and we had a wild weekend and that was near Tintagel actually and I just love the spirit
of the place and I've always loved the spirit of Cornwall. And when I met my wife and we
came back to Cornwall when our son was one and we stayed in Mousehole I kind of fell
in love with the art of Cornwall and particularly the kind of abstract artists of the fifties
and sixties, people like Roger Hilton and William Scott and Peter Lanyon, and I really love that
art and I could see in it their real love of the landscape and the freedom of expression
that came out. I spent a lot of time studying art and artists and over the last five or
six years I've developed my voice which is what you see now.
When we first moved to Cornwall my dream was to become an artist, that's always what I wanted
but life got in the way a bit as it does, so. But I made these paintings at Porthmeor - a friend
had the studio, you can rent the studios at Porthmeor which overlook Porthmeor Beach in
St Ives and I spent several weekends there making paintings and that really kind of ignited
my desire again and it set me on this journey.
I seem to have found my kind of what I want to do and I've found the place where I love
to be and that's quite special really.
Arriving at Tintagel Castle was almost like entering a different country. The topography
is completely different. I was struck by the soaring Cathedral-like cliffs, the deep divide
where the land had fallen away between the mainland and the island which had created
this kind of natural chasm. When you're here you can really see and feel the layered history
of Tintagel, not only of man's impact over the centuries but also the way the fury of
the Cornish weather and the relentless pounding of the sea has shaped this spectacular headland.
There's a brooding, rugged, mysterious beauty to Tintagel.
My process is all about gathering information and the feeling about a place. The experience.
By being somewhere, I absorb the mood and atmosphere - collecting and recording shapes, colours,
textures, sounds and the relationships between them. I take all of this back to the studio and
allow it to spill out onto the canvas in an expressive way to try and capture the essence
of the experience.
Tintagel was certainly an all-encompassing experience for me and one I was very excited
to capture and remember through paint. There were so many things that inspired the painting.
Luckily when I visited Tintagel, the sun was shining and the colours were mesmerising.
The sea was this intense, vibrant jade blue and from a distance the grass that covered the
surrounding headlands had a lime green velvety quality. The orange lichen edged the castle
walls and the jagged stones of the remains created these intricate geometric shapes.
You turn a corner and suddenly through the stones there was a perfectly framed view of the sea
below, a rich umbre ocha colour resonating against the deep turquoise sea.
On the island, I felt a great sense of elevation. All these details and more found their way into the
painting, which I've called Passage.
At the beginning of this process I was very excited to be chosen to make this painting
but to be honest also quite daunted by making a piece that would be seen by so many people.
Although there were some ups and downs with the painting process, I'm thrilled with the
final result. It makes a striking handbook front cover and I hope members will be intrigued
to find out more. At first glance I hope the painting gives a sense of place, a sense of
the spirit of Tintagel Castle but on closer inspection and over time I hope the viewer
will be rewarded with new perspectives and connections.
Wow! These look fantastic, they really do. So interesting to see them in this context having
been so deeply involved with making the painting and the ups and downs the painting went through.
It really brings it to life, and I'm particularly fascinated that the members' card...
there's a small element of the painting's been selected for the members' card which is fantastic because
it really reflects the way I work by collecting fragments of information and using that in
my work, so that's really lovely to see.
Oh I'm absolutely thrilled.