Fancy getting a bit of culture this weekend? Head to Grove Square Galleries near Oxford Circus to check out the lates solo exhibition of from British contemporary painter David Wightman, featuring his paintings, prints and drawings of striking imaginary landscapes.
Integrating collage, colour, and composition to create worlds which blur the lines between fiction and reality, his works is inspired by the colour theory of Josef Albers and the sublime landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich. Wightman’s fantasy vistas defy strict categorisation, evoking elements of both the Romantic and the Abstract with his work offering a glimpse into another world — seemingly real yet entirely fictional.
Growing up in the working-class suburbs of Greater Manchester, Wightman took inspiration from his immediate surroundings, transforming the wallpapered walls of his childhood home into the mountains and ravines of his imagined scenes. His work combines formal artistic influences with the fantasy art he saw throughout his youth in the 1980s. Wightman moved to London to study Fine Art at Middlesex University and went on to achieve a Masters in Painting from the prestigious Royal College of Art, London at the age of 23.
Wightman begins each painting with a ‘cartoon’ – the artist’s term for his delicate line-drawing studies – before slowly collaging the canvas surface with hundreds of hand-cut pieces of textured wallpaper to build his landscape. Once a composition is fully collaged, in a meticulous and time-consuming process, Wightman paints its surface, masterfully combining a distinctive colour palette with rich texture to dizzying effect.
Ariel by David Wightman is running until the 28th May at Grove Square Galleries
