David Wightman is well known for his imaginary landscapes featuring mountains and lakes. The surfaces of Wightman’s intensely-coloured acrylic paintings are made from meticulously hand-cut collaged wallpaper using a technique similar to marquetry. Each painting is painstakingly collaged, crafted, and painted over a period of several weeks. His fictional landscapes pay homage to earlier landscape painters and Japanese wood-block printers, while remaining utterly unique and personal. Cherie Federico, editor of Aesthetica Magazine has said: “You must spend time with Wightman’s paintings; on the surface they are beautiful and intricate, and like the layers they are made from, there is so much depth to his work”. Waterfalls, mountains, lakes, and valleys combine to form landscapes that Wightman describes as being “idealised and impossible”. Empire is David Wightman’s first solo exhibition with Long & Ryle and features over a dozen new paintings, bolder and more colourful than previous works.
