A Manifesto of Painting

“I believe that painting is a human language that will never disappear. From the dawn of time, materials and our imaginations have fused to create truly remarkable paintings and drawings - visual poetry that communicates a hidden realm.”

— Richard Kenton Webb

A Manifesto of Painting is a show which explores the timeless language of colour in painting, highlighting its materiality and emotional power. Richard’s journey, from teaching ‘the practice of colour’ to creating immersive visuals, reflects a deep connection to the physicality of paint.

Focusing on green, this exhibition at MIRROR invites viewers to experience painting as a slow, sensory, and expressive art form. The colour green has been Richard’s colour of focus since arriving in Plymouth in 2020, culminating in this body of work. This response to green is his Manifesto of Painting, a thesis expressed through visual language.

“Painting is slow and counterculture, a refreshing non-electrical, physical activity. Simply put, painting is just mud on canvas, at odds with our instantaneous culture of taking and sharing pictures”.

Richard aligns himself with the English visionary landscape tradition, drawing inspiration from the works of Blake, Palmer, Nash, and Lanyon. As a painter, he weaves his personal biographical narrative into his paintings, channeling the raw energy and power of paint.

As a young teacher during the rise of BritArt in the 1990’s, Richard witnessed the absence of any practical approach to teaching colour. He often posed the question, Is colour a language? To help artists explore this question, Richard created tools like An Alphabet and A Colour Grammar to offer a structured vocabulary for colour. Each colour in the spectrum, from red to violet, is paired with a corresponding earth pigment, enabling artists to engage with colour as a language and express their ideas through the physicality of paint.

Colour is a tangible material—physical paint—that transforms painting into an immersive, sensory experience. This engagement with the physicality of paint allows alchemy to take place. Through their imagination, artists can translate emotions and memories into visual form. For this reason, Richard makes his own paints and encourages others to do the same.

Since 1998, his work has been a continuous exploration of colour. From 2000 to 2005, he created 22 diptychs representing A Colour Grammar, followed by 22 sculptures titled Colour Forms. From 2007 onwards, he explored red and orange; then a Warm / Cold Contrast; then Yellow in Tasmania; followed by a Light / Dark Contrast, a 10-year conversation with Milton’s Paradise Lost, completed in Wembury in 2021. Since moving his studio to Plymouth in 2021, green has become his primary focus.

Richard expresses his gratitude to Arts University Plymouth for entrusting him with the responsibility of painting, a legacy he is proud to pass on to the next generation.