David Manley

Manley’s practice is plural, hard to categorise and pin down. Themes have included responses to landscape, locations and events in Italy, Russia & Portugal, an exotic examination of viruses, portraits ‘for’ fictional Scandinavian detectives, and reflections on Heart Surgery. Supports and media are determined by the perceived needs of each series or groups of works. At time of writing his focus is on modest sized canvases of each town and village across Leicestershire for a series titled “The Heart of Rural England) that already comprises some 130 panels and a group of oil paintings on the notion of the “Hortus Conclusus’ – enclosed gardens, that draws on visits to the Isle of Skye, Cornwall and Dorset as well as reflections on the Bandusium Spring in Horace’s beloved Sabine farm garden.

Biography
David Manley attended Art School in Exeter, Falmouth, & Birmingham before taking up a Fellowship at Cheltenham Art School in 1975. His career includes exhibitions in Italy, Portugal & Japan as well as across the UK. More recently his solo shows have included Derby Museum & Art Gallery & the Angear Gallery at Nottingham University’s Lakeside Arts Centre. He worked in Arts Administration and Higher Education, latterly as Dean of Art & Design at Derby University.