The city is Mark Wigan’s landscape, the urban experience fuelling his work.
The vibrancy of urban night life and underground sub cultures resonate in his intricate drawings and paintings.
An influential pioneer of transglobal urban art during the 80’s and 90’s, Wigan started out as a regular contributor to i-D Magazine, writing articles, taking polaroids and illustrating the London club scene. He painted murals at Kensington Market, The Scala Cinema, Astoria Theatre London, Nagoya City Expo, P.Picasso Club in Tokyo and the Limelight clubs in London and New York. He co-founded and produced nightclubs in London, including the seminal Brain Club, The Love Ranch and Merry England at Café de Paris. His approach is interdisciplinary, crossing fine art, illustration and urban art.
Wigans commissions have included set design for theatre and television, music graphics, nightclub interiors, live painting performances, murals, streetwear and ongoing international gallery exhibitions. Since the 90’s he has lectured at art schools throughout the UK and is the author of six books on illustration published by Bloomsbury. He has collaborated with Dr Martens on a collection of boots and clothes and has designed his own streetwear collections in Japan and China.
‘Paris had Toulouse Lautrec, London’s got Wigan. Thats the nom de nib of Mr Mark Williams - an artist who is the court chronicler to the transient vanities of our age. His poser packed drawings immortalise the murky menagerie of late night hipsterdom. A typical picture depicts adherents of every cult under the moon jostling cheek by haircut in the bowels of any club. Its anthropology a go go’ - Paul Du Noyer, New Musical Express
‘If a picture tells a thousand words Wigan’s drawings are worth an entire library of professorial works on pop culture, early works from 1985 are now revealed as astonishingly accurate maps, showing the development of the attitudes that defined sub cultures’ - Alix Sharkey, The Independent Newspaper
‘It is the triumvirate of design, clubs and T Shirts that propelled Wigan’s reputation as one of London’s leading creative figures .By the late 80s Wigan’s eminence had reached such a fanatical level in Japan that T Shirt designs were bootlegged all over the country." Stephanie Talbot, Slogan T-Shirts Cult and Culture.
A seminal figure amongst the art scene of the 1980’s (Andy Warhol and Jean- Michel Basquiat were acquaintances), Wigan’s hand painted, busy scenes are the latest subcultural artwork to be tapped by Dr Martens’ Clash Magazine
‘He captures the interiors, faces, fashions, music and snippets of overheard conversation in nights from the Dirtbox to Boys Own, the Hacienda to the Brain. Social history with a slightly satirical edge, they’re the clubland equivalent of a Hogarth print’ Sheryl Garratt, The Guardian
Wigan deals with a crossover culture where street style meets club culture meets art and design. He sees all of his activity as an accumulative activity. By the time the art world has caught up with Wigan as a commodity he will be on to his next project. Edward Griffiths, Art Line International
