artist statement
Returning to painting alongside my part-time PhD in education has become a deeply enriching and exciting journey. Influenced by the ethics of posthumanism and immanent philosophy, I’m drawn to fluidity, entanglement, and the agency of all matter. Theorising no longer feels abstract—it animates my creative process. Painting has become a place to embody theory, where ideas are not only explored but lived through paint, gesture, and relational encounter.
Whereas I once viewed the landscape as external to me, as something ‘out there’, I now experience it as ‘vibrant matter’ acting on and through me. Walking through the gardens and woodland at Dartington, I often feel myself dissolve into the landscape. These moments—quiet, immersive, sometimes overwhelming—led to Kissing Every Path, a series of fifty small, colourful, jewel-like paintings. Using oil on paper they were created intuitively, often layered over time to convey complexity. Each one evokes an encounter: a flicker of light, a shift in mood, a merging of myself and the world.
Black Gold came later, after discovering Dartington’s hidden towering compost heaps. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s idea of the Chthulucene—a ‘thick now’ where all life and ‘odd kin’ are entangled—these darker, earthier works suggest mystery, decay and renewal. They also helped me establish my own creative rhythm: walking, looking, dissolving, photographing, painting.
As my practice evolves, my paintings are becoming larger, more abstract, and meditative—I invite viewers to join me in a looking, sensing, and meaning-making that leans into openness, mystery and possibility.
artist bio
Mannie Burn is a painter living and working on the Dartington Estate in South Devon, UK. Her work reflects a deep spiritual connection to the surrounding landscape, capturing both its elemental power and transient beauty. She also draws inspiration from less visible places, such as the compost heaps, celebrating their ‘black-gold’ role in ecological renewal and symbolic resonance.
Trained in painting, printmaking, and performance arts during the late 1970s and 1980s, Mannie has recently returned to her visual art practice after many years devoted to music, education, and family. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions in Devon and Cornwall, and in May 2025 she presented her first solo show, Kissing Every Inch of Every Path I Ever Walked, at Birdwood House in Totnes, UK.
artist gallery
