Kylie Manning’s Mudlarkers: figuration and abstraction in concert

The canvas speaks in layers. Kylie Manning’s new body of work at Pace Gallery’s Hanover Square location moves with the fluid grace of something caught between representation and pure sensation, between the recognisable world and the realm of feeling. The Mudlarkers invites viewers into a space where figuration and atmospheric abstraction coexist not as opposing forces but as partners in a quietly complex dialogue.

These paintings resist easy categorisation. Manning orchestrates her forms with the precision of someone who understands that meaning emerges not from what is depicted, but from how it is articulated: the density of pigment, the suggestion of movement beneath the surface, the architectural quality of composition. There exists a contemplative quality to her approach, one that speaks to the inherent tension between the artist’s hand and the work itself, between intention and discovery.

The artist as subject

The real preoccupation at the heart of these works concerns the relationship between maker and made. In contemporary practice, the artist and artwork function as figure and ground simultaneously, each informing and transforming the other in an endless exchange. This is Manning’s territory: a space where the viewer encounters not merely an image, but a trace of the creative act itself, the accumulated decisions and gestures that constitute artistic vision.

The exhibition’s title carries its own resonance. Mudlarkers were those who scavenged the Thames foreshore in search of salvageable remnants, finding value in what others had discarded. There is something of this methodology in Manning’s painterly practice, where fragments of the observed world are gathered, considered and reconstituted into something altogether more expansive. Her compositions build layered narratives, subtle and absorbing, that refuse singular interpretation.

The work demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of colour as both formal element and emotional register. Tones move across the canvas with an almost musical quality, establishing rhythms that guide the eye through forms that hover between the abstract and the representational. This is painting of considerable refinement, made by someone deeply invested in the medium’s continued possibilities.

Pace Gallery’s London gallery on Hanover Square provides an appropriate setting for this body of work, its elegant proportions allowing the paintings to breathe and reveal their complexities. The Mudlarkers remains open through November 14.

Imagery courtesy of Pace Gallery (@pacegallery).