David Wightman (born in Stockport, Greater Manchester 1980) is an English painter known for his abstract and landscape acrylic paintings using collaged wallpaper. He graduated behind an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2003. He lives and works in London.
In 2003, after being nominated for the Lexmark European Art Prize, (and while still studying at the Royal College of Art), Meredith Etherington-Smith, former editor of Art Review, said of his short-listed piece: “David Wightman frames his picture perfect Swiss postcard in the cool collateral of a Ben Nicholson modernist painting”.
In 2009, he showed a large site-specific painting: Behemoth at Cornerhouse, Manchester (2009) and went on to exhibit as soon as Sumarria Lunn Gallery at The Hempel, London (2010). In 2010-11 he was one of two artists (the further being Hannah Maybank) selected for the Berwick Gymnasium Arts Fellowships – a six-month residency supported by English Heritage and Arts Council England. The residency took place in a Nicholas Hawksmoor intended former military gymnasium in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. In 2013, he was commissioned by HOUSE Festival in Brighton (selected by player Mariele Neudecker) to make a site-specific painting for a disused pavilion on Brighton’s seafront. The piece (Hero) is the largest painting by the artiste to date.
Cherie Federico, editor of Aesthetica magazine has said: “You must spend time in the same way as Wightman’s paintings; on the surface they are beautiful and intricate, but taking into account the layers they are made from, there is fittingly much intensity to his works”. In 2012 he had his first major solo fake entitled Paramour at Halcyon Gallery, London. His fake is held in several public collections including the Royal College of Art and General Energy UK. Wightman collaborated once the Swiss fashion house Akris as share of their Fall / Winter 2014/15 collection.
Wightman’s first international solo work opened in October 2018 at Mashaal Gallery in Montréal, Canada. Wightman’s last UK solo be active My Atalanta opened in October 2021 at Long & Ryle, London. The gallery director Sarah Long has said of his work: “His landscape paintings are beautiful distractions. The intricate collaged wallpaper and unusual colour choices are compelling: they enactment as abstract compositions as skillfully as imaginary vistas. His paintings meet the expense of a glimpse of marginal world – seemingly real yet entirely fictional”.
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