Kylie Manning’s Mudlarkers: Earth, History and Thames
The artist's debut London solo exhibition channels the city's geological heritage and riverine traditions into luminous, site specific paintings. Opening tomorrow at Pace Gallery's Hanover Square address.
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Kylie Manning’s forthcoming solo exhibition represents a captivating immersion into the material and historical essence of place. The Mudlarkers unfolds as a continuation of the artist’s distinctive practice of creating site specific works that respond with profound sensitivity to the unique atmospheres and narratives woven through their geographical locations.
For this exceptional presentation, Manning has embarked upon an intimate engagement with London’s layered past. She has incorporated Hampshire and London clay alongside silt drawn from the River Thames directly into her pigments, a deeply considered methodology that transforms the very earth beneath the city into chromatic expression. This elemental approach references the enduring tradition of mudlarking, that centuries old pursuit of sifting through London’s riverbanks to discover fragments of history.
The resulting works possess an extraordinary sensory resonance. By grounding her artistic practice in the tangible materials of place, Manning creates paintings that seem to breathe with the accumulated memory of their surroundings. Each composition becomes not merely an image upon canvas, but rather a distillation of landscape, geology and cultural heritage rendered through pigment and form.
The exhibition opens tomorrow evening, offering an invitation to experience these remarkable works within the distinguished setting of Pace Gallery’s Hanover Square location. The opening reception provides an opportunity to encounter the paintings directly, to witness how light and shadow animate these earth infused compositions, and to understand the profound dialogue Manning establishes between artistic vision and the material world.
This is a significant moment within contemporary artistic practice, marking Manning’s debut presentation in London and demonstrating her commitment to a mode of creation that honours both intellectual rigour and sensory immediacy. The Mudlarkers invites contemplation of how artists might draw meaning and material from the very ground beneath our feet, transforming the overlooked remnants of urban geography into meditations upon time, place and artistic possibility.
Imagery courtesy of Pace Gallery (@pacegallery).
