ABSTRACT
It was 1976, one of Britain’s hottest summers ever. I was in the second year of my Fine Art Degree at Newport College of Art and Design. I did not like art college much. I got really fed up with the way that the lecturers seemed to want to categorise everybody into an ‘ism’. In their infinite wisdom they decided to call me an Abstract Expressionist Impressionist, whatever that means! I just wanted to shout back at them: ‘No. I am not an Abstract Expressionist Impressionist-ism. I am really Richard Manners. What about looking at the real me?’ However, for whatever reason, I found that I had become trapped in a system that left me feeling essentially inarticulate. So, rightly or wrongly, I remained silent. It seemed to me
that if one did not easily fit into a category, or an ‘ism’, which was contemporary or easily slotted into a historical context, one was invalidated.
