BEHEMOTH AND OTHER NEW PAINTINGS / 31/10/09 - 16/12/09
DAVID WIGHTMAN
Exhibition runs: 31st October to 16th December / 9.30am - 11pm (Mon to Thurs) / 9.30am - 12 midnight (Fri to Sat) / 11.30am - 10.30pm (Sun)
Location: CORNERHOUSE, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH
David Wightman creates both abstract and landscape paintings using paint and textured wallpaper in a unique method similar to marquetry. His work requires great precision and is almost mathematical; he often repaints sections of his works many times in the pursuit of perfection before he is satisfied. Drawing on the tools of postmodern thought including hybridity, pastiche and even parody, he plays with established genres that are often considered "dead".
Wightman's abstract paintings appropriate motifs from geometric abstraction - most prominently rounded and square targets. 'For me, geometric abstraction is associated with aspiration, idealism and modernity. Coupling these motifs with collaged wallpaper (used to signify my own background) I seek to personalise geometric abstraction, imbuing it with nostalgia.' Similarly, his latest landscape paintings subtly undermine the genre of the "ideal landscape" by introducing textured wallpaper. 'I aim to capture both the beauty and futility of these images, and the desires they represent.'
This exhibition at CORNERHOUSE includes both Wightman's abstract works and his most recent landscapes. While at first glance the only connection between these works may appear to be the technique, they are in fact conceptually comparable too: 'In both my abstract and landscape paintings, the colours and patterns I choose indicate an aesthetic link between aspirational working class homes and high art. My work is an attempt to reclaim abstraction and landscape on my own terms’. Furthermore there are links in the two sets of imagery- the geometric purity of Wightman's abstract works complements the purity we associate with the mountain landscape.
Puella Mea, from his new mountain series, translates as "My Girl". It makes reference to the "Jungfrau" (meaning young maiden or girl) mountains painted by artists such as Ford Madox Brown, Edward Theodore Compton and the Italian Alpine painter Giovanni Segantini, who requested to be moved closer to "his" mountains shortly before dying. The largest of Wightman’s works, Behemoth, takes its title from a mythical beast featured in the Book of Job. It means literally, an extremely large or powerful entity which alludes to the size of the work itself. The word is used to evoke the sense of terror and isolation inherent within mountain landscapes in opposition to their usual association with sublime beauty. This sense of terrific awe in scale and subject matter is curtailed by the use of pastel colours and collaged wallpaper providing a darkly humorous contrast.
Wightman is interested in the contradictory connotations of mountain landscapes, their beauty and terror; their isolation and wholesomeness. It is this sense of the age-old mountain, isolated and cold, that makes a subtle yet ingenious reference to the predicament of the landscape genre. Prescribed as dead on more than one occasion by art criticism, the "perfect landscape" is now considered crass and kitsch and therefore totally in line with the connotations of the textured wallpaper with which Wightman creates his own landscapes. While disguised by uplifting colours there is a quiet sadness in his work, and with it an integrity that appears to be missing from much of contemporary art.
David Wightman is a graduate of Middlesex University and the Royal College of Art. Solo exhibitions include Aspirations, William Angel Gallery, London (2008). Group shows include The Medical Foundation Art Auction, SUMARRIA LUNN, John McAslan + Partners/Royal Institution of Great Britain, London (2009), In A Word, SUMARRIA LUNN, Eyre Court/NW8, London (2009), Travelling Light, Wilson Williams Gallery/Pharos Gallery, Venice Biennale (2009), CUBE Open, CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), Manchester (2008), Beneath, Surface Gallery, Nottingham (2006), RCA Secret, Royal College of Art, London (2004) and Summer Show, Florence Trust, St. Saviour's, London (2004). The artist was a finalist at the Lexmark European Art Prize (2003) and is a recipient of the Hunting Art Prize (2003).
[Press release written by SUMARRIA LUNN]
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David Wightman: Behemoth and Other New Paintings at CORNERHOUSE
Exhibition runs: 31st October to 16th December / 9.30am - 11pm (Mon to Thurs) / 9.30am - 12 midnight (Fri to Sat) / 11.30am - 10.30pm (Sun)
CORNERHOUSE, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH