David Wiseman

Biography

David Wiseman has been painting for over 40 years since leaving the Royal College of Art in 1975 mostly spent in his garden studio close to the local rivers and woodland in Ealing that he loves and that inspire his much of his work.  He received the John Minton Award at the Royal College of Art,  an Arts Council of Great Britain Award and a Greater London Arts Association Award. 

He has taught painting in numerous art schools across the country and has exhibited widely both as an individual and in many important selected group exhibitions. These include the New Contemporaries, John Moores , Hayward Annual, R.A. Summer Exhibition, Discerning Eye, London Group Open, Royal Watercolour Society  etc. 

His individual shows include those at the Serpentine Gallery, Rowley Gallery, Water Street Gallery, Felix and Spear  and Peterborough City Museum. He has taken part in touring exhibitions to Germany, U.S.A., and Spain including a British Council exhibition to Aachen and tour including Hodgkin, Auerbach, Kiff and Kossoff. In 1980 he was shortlisted for the National Gallery Artist in Residence.

He has  exhibited in many  important curated exhibitions in this country including at The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Kettles Yard Gallery, Cambridge and the Camden Arts Centre. He has his  work in many corporate and public collections including the Arts Council, Prudential, The Bank of England, London Borough of Hammersmith, The Open University, Peterborough City Museum, Museo Municipal Ourense,  Barts and the London N.H.S. Trust,  Lewisham Hospital  and many more .

  His work is represented in private collections in all parts of the world and he has  completed 8 major public art works including large scale murals at Charing Cross, Frimley Park, Royal London and Ealing Hospitals. He was elected to the London Group in their centenary year 2013 and the Arborealists in 2016. Winner of many awards including RWS Purchase Prize 2016, Daler Rowney Prize 2016 and RWS Publicity Prize 2018.

Statemen

The works on canvas and larger works on paper are made in the studio and I also work directly from the landscape with a variety of mixed media on smaller works on paper. My painting is  inspired by particular landscape places or events using drawings, photographs and memory. Although spending a lot of time in Devon, Wales  and the south coast I am equally inspired by local rivers and parklands close to my Ealing home.  When painting outside I try to convey the feeling of being part of the landscape.  I have been a keen runner for many years and most of my running is done along the riverside and canal that inspires much of my painting. This allows me to be absorbed by the landscape as I pass through it rather than seeing it as a picture postcard cut out image. I also want to instil this feeling of constant change and movement in my paintings.  They are begun in a loose, freely drawn calligraphic way using a series of marks, stains and shapes made with a wide variety of brushes, roller, scraper, sponge, etc.  The final image is slowly extracted in a playful, organic way using overlaid marks and glazes to express qualities of nature such as mood, light, colour, movement, atmosphere, space etc. I am attempting to find equivalents for the landscape in the physical qualities of paint, in order to express a feeling of flux in nature. I want the paintings to be intriguing, tantalising and ambiguous held between the plastic qualities of the paint and all the celebratory magical illusions and evocations of the depiction of nature.

See David’s Lockdown Video below -

See David’s Lockdown Interview here -

About the work

The works on canvas and larger works on paper are made in the studio and I also work directly from the landscape with a variety of mixed media on smaller works on paper. My painting is  inspired by particular landscape places or events using drawings, photographs and memory. Although spending a lot of time in Devon, Wales and the south coast I am equally inspired by local rivers and parklands close to my Ealing home.  When painting outside I try to convey the feeling of being part of the landscape.  I have been a keen runner for many years and most of my running is done along the riverside and canal that inspires much of my painting. This allows me to be absorbed by the landscape as I pass through it rather than seeing it as a picture postcard cut out image. I also want to instil this feeling of constant change and movement in my paintings.  They are begun in a loose, freely drawn calligraphic way using a series of marks, stains and shapes made with a wide variety of brushes, roller, scraper, sponge, etc.  The final image is slowly extracted in a playful, organic way using overlaid marks and glazes to express qualities of nature such as mood, light, colour, movement, atmosphere, space etc. I am attempting to find equivalents for the landscape in the physical qualities of paint, in order to express a feeling of flux in nature. I want the paintings to be intriguing, tantalising and ambiguous held between the plastic qualities of the paint and all the celebratory magical illusions and evocations of the depiction of nature.