Mark Wigan
Artist Mark Wigan first gained recognition in the early 1980's for his illustrations for NME and iD magazine. Many of Wigan's projects have taken place in Japan including the launch of his own chain of 'art to wear' merchandise shops. Other commissions have included murals for nightclubs and city expos, set designs for TV shows and animation for TV commercials.
Career highlights have included painting murals at London and New York's Limelight clubs at Andy Warhol's suggestion (who described Wigan's work as 'hot'), promoting his own clubs The Brain and the Love Ranch as well as exhibiting paintings at galleries all over the world including The Circulo des Belles Artes in Madrid and Spiral Hall in Tokyo. Some of Wigan's thousands of polaroid night club portraits (many of which were published in iD magazine) are currently part of iD magazine's major touring exhibition, starting off at London’s Fashion & Textiles Museum.
Click the Photo Gallery link at the top to view images of past work.
'In Japan he is a multimedia celebrity for whom no commission is too outlandish. He has designed club interiors, sets for T.V. shows, an airship and even appeared as the central figure in adverts for a department store.'
Ekow Eshun. The Face magazine
'Early works from 1985 are now revealed as astonishingly accurate maps, showing the development of the attitudes, hairstyles, clothing and interests that defined a subculture. If a picture tells a thousand words Wigan's drawings are worth an entire library of professorial works on pop culture'.
Alix Sharkey. The Independent Newspaper
Cult artist Mark Wigan has been transcribing the bizarre habits and mutant creatures of the city's sub culture into complex and beautiful patterns since the mid eighties. Taking a cue from Aboriginal art, his colourful, dancing shapes are both decoration and information, mapping out a hidden landscape and yeilding secret signs to the initiated. While early work drew family trees linking punk, hip hop, wag club trendies and goth tribes, he later embraced rave culture and became its favoured chronicler. He went on to found the Brain Club and the legendary Love Ranch. These days his playful tribal graphic influence can be seen in every club mural, flyer and t-shirt in the capital, but the real Wigan experience is something much more interesting than any of its offshoots.
Alice Houlihan written for Metro Life. London.
'He has decorated restaurants and nightclubs from London to Tokyo'
Robin Dutt. The Independent Newspaper.
'Wigan is the master appropriator' i-D magazine
