My workday in the studio often begins by sweeping the floor and tidying up. If inspiration comes slowly, around the third cup of tea, it is likely to have been a fleeting glimpse of something in a painting that was not apparent yesterday or has been hidden for a decade. I often rework pieces. One mark, spill, spatter, or shape invites another action. I paint abstractly, often unthinking, often mindless as to what might appear. In a flood of stains and daubs, little worlds take shape. Like an analog photograph in a tank of developer, an image floats to the surface, the image dries and hardens, colors deepen, or lighten, or fade, or even disappear. I paint wet on wet, instinct takes over, and a dizzy, precarious order takes over from fluid chaos. For me, art is made by a working process, and the practical steps I take create the intangible magic that infuses a painting with life. They are not done until they have a pulse.
David Wilson, Crow, acrylic on monks cloth, 20 x 16 in., 2023.
David Wilson, Totem, acrylic on burlap, 38 x 30 in., 2024.
David Wilson, Fly, acrylic on monks cloth, 41 x 36 in., 2024.
The process of art making is deeply intertwined for me with a consideration of what has come before and what might emerge next. Each painting exists within a continuum, shaped by the actions that led to its current state and the possibilities it holds for future works. Often, I work on multiple pieces simultaneously, focusing particularly on pairs of paintings that share the same size and format. This approach allows for a dialogue between works, where the evolution of one painting can influence and inform the progression of another. I was taught by tutors and mentors steeped in 20th-century modernism. My approach is still more or less defined by artists who taught and mentored me fifty years ago, who in turn had been influenced by abstract expressionists like Willem de Kooning and Clyfford Still. They are, it seems to me, in spite of denials on their behalf, artists whose work is rooted in a tradition of landscape painting that still chimes with me today. On the other hand, for many years, the scale of my work was relatively small, often not much larger than a postcard, and I drew inspiration from medieval illuminated manuscripts and the work of William Blake and Samuel Palmer. Painting and visual awareness have affected my thinking and being for my entire life. The shift to a larger scale opened a new path to explore. A road I am still on.
David Wilson, On Island, acrylic on monks cloth, 42 x 60 in., 2025.
David Wilson, Moth and Spider, acrylic on monks cloth, 42 x 60 in., 2025.
David Wilson, Black Hand, acrylic on monks cloth, 42 x 36 in., 2025.
My painting practice involves thinking with my hands as much as with my mind; the hand makes a move, and the mind follows. The act of making becomes a conversation between paint, gestures, and intuition—ideas emerge, unplanned, but not before the work begins, in the process itself. In staining, dripping, daubing, and responding to what unfolds on the canvas, understanding grows organically. Making, in this sense, is not only a means of expression but a mode of inquiry; it is through the tactile, the accidental, and the persistent act of doing that new insights surface and take form I would love to say that I am transported to another place while I work but practical issues like paint drying too fast or needing to scrub off a wrong move always interfere, not to mention the phone or the dogs, or the outside world crashing in. Any sense of transcendence I experience most often arises during the act of viewing the completed artwork. It is not so much “thinking through making” as “thinking after making.” Transcendence, however fleeting, is my drug of choice. Although the feeling may be fleeting, it is precisely those moments—standing before a wet canvas in the studio or viewing my work on a gallery wall—that capture the essence of painting for me.
David Wilson, Another Northern Song, acrylic on monks cloth, 60 x 42 in., 2025.
David Wilson, Miracle, acrylic on monks cloth, 42 x 36 in. 2025.
Image at top: David Wilson, Mud Flat, acrylic on monks cloth, 20 x 16 in., 2023.