Every Artist Has A Language
'Language of Paint' is the new monograph from David Mankin, exploring how he has honed his practice, found his creative voice, and learned to let the Cornish landscape speak through paint.
232 pages. Lavishly illustrated. Out September 2026.
Pre-order your copy now and receive an exclusive A5 print with a personal message from David, plus an invitation to an exclusive online event.
PRE-ORDER TODAYWhat is inside?
This is not a record of David's work. It is a window into how that work comes to be.
At the heart of Language of Paint is a long, candid conversation between David and art historian Alison Bevan. It is a conversation about what it means to develop a visual language of your own. About learning from the masters while remaining entirely yourself. About the role of risk, experimentation, and failure in finding a creative voice. About what the Cornish landscape does to a person who pays close attention to it.
Bevan situates David's work within a broad tradition, from Romanticism and St Ives Modernism to American Abstract Expressionism, exploring what makes his practice distinctly his own. She brings both scholarship and a gallerist's eye to the question of how paint becomes language.
The book also opens something rarely seen: pages from David's sourcebooks. The raw, fragmentary, often unexpected beginnings of paintings that almost never leave the studio. Collages, sketches, slivers of photographs, flotsam, lines of poetry. The things that set a painting in motion before it becomes itself.
And throughout, collectors of David's work share what his paintings have meant to them over time. Not what the paintings look like, but what they continue to do. The way they shift and speak differently as years pass. The way they hold memories and moods the collector did not know they were carrying.
Why order now, and why order directly?
When you pre-order Language of Paint directly,
your copy comes with three things you cannot get anywhere else.
Exclusive A5 Print
An exclusive A5 print of one of David's paintings, accompanied by a handwritten personal message from him. It is specific to this book and will not be available elsewhere.
An Invitation
An invitation to an exclusive online event where David talks about the book, the work it contains, and what it meant to make it. A chance to hear from him directly, rather than through a gallery wall.
Special Price
The pre-order price is £40, against the retail price of £45 after 17 August. That saving is exclusive to direct orders placed before the deadline. Once the pre-order window closes, it will not be offered again.
"Five years ago, my first book came out. Remembering in Paint. I was proud of it, and it captured something true about where I was at the time.
This one goes further.
Alison Bevan has spent the last year asking me questions I have not often been asked. About how I actually work. About what I was looking for when I started. About what the landscape does to me and why I can't stop trying to put it into paint.
In trying to answer those questions honestly, I think I've understood my own practice more clearly than I had before.
The book has paintings I am very proud of. It has pages from my sourcebooks that I have shown to almost no one. It has a conversation at its centre that I hope will feel useful to anyone who is trying to find their own way with paint, whether they are just starting out or have been at it for years.
I wanted people who care about the work to be able to order directly. It matters to me practically, and personally. And I wanted to say thank you with a small print and a note.
I hope the book means something to you."
“David Mankin is one of the most compelling abstract painters of his generation.”
“...creating works of intensity and depth inspired by the Cornish landscape. His paintings carry an emotional weight and instil a visceral response - each painting evoking real feelings rather than a casual observation. Through his unique language of paint, he captures the wilds of Cornwall, distilling its essence into something profoundly human. The resultant body of work forms a lasting connection in all who encounter it and I believe his standing in the art world will continue to soar amongst his many collectors around the world’ ”
- Sarah Brittain-Mansbridge MBE, Director, Cornwall Contemporary
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