The Rebuild
This is my 6th art project.
My last public display of work was in 2018. I fully planned to exhibit work back in 2020, but this did not come to pass. It has been over 10 years since I first exhibited a small project in college titled “Everything Before” which was about medical survival and in an odd way, we are back here again. More medical survival. More overall survival really.
The Rebuild is a project on pulling yourself back from the brink, from the edge of darkness and really working on yourself. As you will hopefully find, as you work your way through the last 4 years of my life, rebuilding yourself is the strongest thing you can do when everything else feels like it is in ruins.
Rebuilding can take time; it’s not something you crack in a day. It’s never easy. It’s not an overnight fix. It requires making peace. It requires breaking things, scratching them out, creating anew. It required a lot from me, and in many ways, so did this project.
I have found it incredibly important to create and now share how the last few years unfolded for me personally, professionally, romantically and medically.
I hope you find something here that resonates. Welcome to my house.
My Rebuild.
Some artwork is still for sale - please visit the store to see selected works. Use store or email michael.wight@me.com
2021
The Sink (2023)
(Acrylic, Watercolour, Oil, Pencil, Charcoal and Ink on Canvas)
H: 62 cm W: 62 cm D: 2 cm
The Rebuild is a story of growth from repair and loss, and there was no better starting point that the deep sink down to loss. In some ways, I'll never not be a little angry at the pandemic and how it reformed how I view myself and my condition. On the canvas you can find three distorted versions of myself as an abstract portrait gone wrong; despair, anger and betrayal are all on this on canvas. I lost so much time and parts of myself during the pandemic. This project looks at how I battled with that, and built my life back
(FOR SALE)
The Slow Death of Us (2022-2023)
(Acrylic, Charcoal and Pastel on Canvas)
H: 41cm W: 51cm D: 2cm
f you look back hard enough you can pinpoint the exact moment that your friendship began to fall apart. I traced ours all the way back to here. To this moment. It was not the chaotic moment of betrayal, or the lies, it was the slow pull away and the lack of care overall for everyone around you.
(FOR SALE)
Older, Aulder Now (2022-2024)
(Acrylic and Spray paint on Canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2 cm
I feel so much older now. Bitter now. Tired now. I still love acting the fool and being busy - but I am older. I feel older. Memories feel fragmented more than ever before. When did we last catch up? Long time no see.
Kids? Marriages? Mortgages? Career moves? Blink and you’ll miss it all really. Traditional expectation seems to be entrenched and I want to run from it all. I also find comfort in people I care for reaching these milestones and crushing it (positive crushing). I think you can have respect for everyone's different goals and still really set yourself a beautifully different path.
(SOLD)
Release (2021-2023)
(Acrylic, Pastel, Pencil, Charcoal, Chalk and embedded String on Canvas)
H: 80 cm W: 60 cm D: 2cm
Release was an exploration on loss, primarily the loss of time. The end of the way my previous coworkers looked at me, as someone to trust, someone to depend on. Once trusted and progressing, the situation that arose from the pandemic led these opinions on me to change, and also for my own world view to become more askew than ever before. The pandemic changed many things for me, my condition became more present in the forefront, in such a sharp way it was staggering. Release was this old thought I had in the back of my mind, that I was not like everyone else and I had to be more careful, but I’d lived my life with lack of this thought for so long. Release sees my buried thoughts on my condition leap out, stretch and attempt to gain coverage in a traumatic time.
(FOR SALE)
A Miracle Like Me (2022)
(Acrylic, charcoal and pencil on canvas)
H: 90 cm W: 60 cm D: 2 cm
A Miracle Like Me is based on a series of photographs I shot inside needle sharps bins in 2021. It might sound humorous, to those who know me best but I have had an incredible phobia of needles based on many injections gone wrong over my childhood years at the hospital. I wanted to tap into the horror of how I see needles, syringes and their tubing. I used the phrase ‘miracle’ in this title because I also wanted to play with the notion of what a miracle actually is or could be. My condition and how I live with it is not a miracle or a gift, it’s not divine or some otherworldly message. My survival is a testament to the NHS, to those in science, healthcare, vaccinations and the study of medicine and how it can evolve to protect us – and those who work and make sure I’m healthy, myself included.
(FOR SALE)
Rid Raw (2023 – 2024)
(Acrylic, ribbon, polyethene, medical tubing and ink on diptych)
H: 30 cm W: 41 cm D: 2 cm
Rid Raw is an exposed nerve, an open wound of what was and who I am still to this day. I wanted to try and use a material to make things tie and bind to the canvas, in an attempt to show nerves, or constriction in my movements – as if felt like 2021 and 2022 that followed were very conforming at the start. There’s an openness with the two joined canvases, how they show that I was really ready for a new start. A fresh outlook on everything and to see how and where I would potentially go next. I just have to follow my nerves sometimes.
(NFS)
Rid Rawer 2 (2023)
(Acrylic, polythene and glue on canvas)
H: 52 cm W: 41 cm D: 2 cm
A companion piece to Rid Raw, I wanted to explore what the next stage of my life could be, as shed the skin of the pandemic and burst across reality again. I feel we all experienced some form of this, either successfully or incredibly awkward as life opened back up to us all and we got to live again, in a “new normal”. This canvas is covered in a shedding of another old painting from the 2018 show Change, TISSUE - as a direct link to my last public display of work.
(NFS)
Ankle (2024)
(Acrylic, chalks, card and pastel on canvas)
H: 31 cm W: 41 cm D: 2 cm
On my first date with my partner Alex I folded on my ankle 10 minutes in, left bruised for weeks, but I didn’t let it stop me. Dean village has never looked so sweet that day with you. Origami lotus flowers floating down The Water of Leith, with your equation scribbles carved in. Your patience around me when I was the most fragile and worried I’ve ever been was the most perfect remedy to my fear.
(SOLD)
Yellowcraig (2024)
(Acrylic, Pastel, Chalk, Charcoal, Pencil and spray paint on canvas)
H: 100cm W: 100cm D: 2cm
After shielding during the pandemic, I told myself I would push for honesty and if I was lucky enough to find someone important enough to share with my family, I would. After things developed with Alex, my family and I went to Yellowcraig beach and then on arrival back home I came out as gay over a chippy. I’d dreaded so much of this and anticipated doing this for many years (it never happens exactly how you picture it). Life never usually works that way. Yellowcraig is a direct response how I felt in the days that followed, unburdened, relieved and grateful that my family accepted me for who I am. We live in a world that does not always accept or see us equally.
(SOLD)
2022
What I Mean When I Say “I'm fine” (2022-2024)
(Acrylic, tissue paper, pastel, pencil and ink on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 90 cm D: 2 cm
‘What I Mean’, is an exploration of social niceties and how for the longest time, I have told everyone I’m always fine. It even became a running joke between my friends that my life could be a shambles, I could be injured or in poor health and my automatic response was, and still to a point is - “I'm fine”. I feel it is something engrained in our culture of a certain age that we don’t always say how we actually feel. On theme, the canvas started off very dark, moody and covered in dark floral tissue paper ended covered up gradually by colourful presenting squares and shapes. It does the job of a “It’s fine” and serves as a distraction to how things once were. For much of my life, it feels there’s been an underneath, a complex layer to how I feel and then a contrast to how I present externally. That recognition is much more important than how we choose to hide it.
(FOR SALE)
Soft (2023)
(Acrylic, oil, pastel and pencil on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2 cm
A painting about a quiet and peaceful spot by the coast that was always a getaway and a release. Soft is a landscape of sorts, an abstract perspective on this woodland area and the memories I have of this place. I wanted the work to feel as though it was from memory, fuzzy in parts but also with jolts of colour throughout, as if clear cut remnants of what I remember beam to me every now and then.
(SOLD)
Facebook Mums (2023)
(Acrylic, pastel and chalk on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 90 cm D: 2 cm
This work went through a few different stages in its creation and for the longest time, I tried to keep it very vague and frothy, even so far as to title it ‘opaque online’, but no matter what I tried to skirt around, I found myself finally just giving into the aimed nature of it. I wanted to try and bring to life the feelings on transparency on social media, but found myself going over and over in circles on it, both mentally and physically on the canvas. I find that so much of what we do on social media and especially as I used it as a crutch during the pandemic, is not for face value. Such a large part of it is for show, and it’s almost as if there’s a thin veil over everything, a veil of pretence. This canvas has many thin layers of watered down acrylic on it before the larger shapes of frustration eventually emerged.
(FOR SALE)
Mali (2022 - 2023)
(Acrylic and pencil on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2 cm
A painting for who the project is dedicated to, our family pet Benji, who we sadly lost in 2022. He was the most precious and special dog ever, and I felt that I had to include him in this segment for 2022 and his loss shaped me and also impacted so much of what we do as a family. He will be loved and missed forever. The canvas composition was created from a photograph taken back during 2021, when I wasn’t allowed to be near anyone who could potentially give me Covid-19 and the only one I could be close to and sit with me in my flat was Benji. He was a lifeline, when there were no others. The Rebuild is for you Benji, our wee Mali.
(SOLD)
Assumptions and Their Consequences
(Acrylic, charcoal, ink, pastel, origami paper, chalk on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 90 cm D: 2 cm
This acrylic based work was meant to be completely different on the outset, a pale green was covering the canvas base and I was going to work on making it as minimalist as possible, but sometimes when I assume that’s what is going to happen, it rarely ever does. An artwork about surprise, layers and building. Every choice has effect.
(FOR SALE)
Something Ur Not (2023 – 2024)
(Acrylic, spray paint, pastel, wooden bracket and plastic grid on canvas)
H: 80 cm W: 60 cm D: 2 cm
This work originally was based on a few nightclub photographs that’s merged into a more structural piece on calendar boxes, goals and aspirations being met or missed. It seems that is what life has become, a painting that muses on missed dates, missed opportunities and a feeling on things slowly slipping away.
(NFS)
2023
Seven Vials (2024)
(Acrylic, Pastel, Charcoal, Chalks, Paper and Ink on canvas)
H: 100 cm W: 100 cm D: 2 cm
Seven Vials, also known at certain stages to myself titled as “you don't have to do this every week so how the fuck would you know” is a painting that was brought to me as a reflection on my weekly transfusions. Seven Vials covers the elements of my blood transfusions that all come together each week to keep me healthy and safe. The seven vials of blood product, the blue sterile field, the tubing, the circular lids of the vials, the spinning wires and interlocking syringes. I see this piece as a negative and colder sibling painting to Miracle Like Me, as it explores the less grateful mindset in my head about my medical condition. Why me? Why this?
(FOR SALE)
is it Worth Even Trying? (2023)
(Acrylic, watercolour, tissue paper and ink on canvas)
H: 52 cm W: 75 cm D: 2 cm
With ‘trying’ I wanted to try something a bit different on the canvas. I’m usually very heavy with my canvases and can put layers and layers on, then scrape off before I get anything I'm remotely interested in or happy with. I wanted to put paint on watered down, and build layers, all the while questioning if it was worth my time and trouble to take more care. I found I could build in a different way, without the harsh deconstruction of my work so far.
(FOR SALE)
Big Gratitude (2022-2023)
(Acrylic, Ink, Pastel and Origami Paper)
H: 62 cm W: 62 cm D: 2 cm
‘Big Gratitude’ takes the theme of horror from ‘A Miracle Like Me’, my phobia of needles and medical procedures and spins it into something more positive. I wanted to have a submerged needle monster explore an underwater environment with the beacon on a sharps bin to the left. I figured I would do what I do with most of my fears and worries and turn something I find awful into something I find interesting or curious.
(FOR SALE)
Knock Off (2024)
(Ribbon, wire, acrylic on canvas)
H: 30 cm W: 40 cm D: 2 cm
I feel like I can collect and hoard objects more than normal. A large part of it is sentimentality, I love that objects have history and a story before, in this instance, I bring them together onto a canvas to create something as experimental as Knock Off. Medical tubing that i have kept with my art supplies since they expired by accident during the pandemic, spun with wire I bought to install my last show on metal sheet walls in 2018, everything has a purpose and a tale to tell, and by combining these elements in a new union on a canvas, they have entered a new chapter.
(NFS)
Closet Fire Sale (2024)
(Acrylic, pencil, iwa-enogu, chalk, pastel on paper)
A1 paperwork, framed.
Closet Fire Sale is one of my first available works on paper at an exhibition since my first exhibition of work back in 2012. I decided to work with paper to experiment on a larger scale without having the sturdy and more durable canvas foundation. I have painted on much larger surfaces, but something about the fragility in paper, balanced with how much it can withstand was intriguing for me to play with this time round. This is the first of four paper works in The Rebuild, all created within the last year. I have also used, for the first time, iwa-enogu, which is Japanese mineral pigment one of my friends brought me back from their trip to Japan.
(FOR SALE)
Portobello Hindsight (2022 – 2024)
(Acrylic, ink, pastels and chalks on canvas)
H: 100 cm W: 100 cm D: 5 cm
Portobello Hindsight was a painting influenced by a piece of writing I did while reflecting on how my friend Danielle and I walked the length of Portobello Beach multiple nights a week during the socially distanced days of the pandemic. I began work on the canvas very early 2022, then returned back to it this year on further reflection I wanted to add some more layers. The painting is based on these sometimes-uneventful nights in which our brains were constantly firing on full cylinders - we overthought every single micro moment of our lives, as if it was all to be expanded out and deconstructed. At the time, it felt chaotic, yet oddly reassuring. It was, in a basic sense, ritualistic. Turbulent minds for turbulent times. Looking back, it was one of the only things I had to look forward to. This saved me. Very few things did.
(FOR SALE)
2024
Told You So (2024)
(Acrylic, chalk, pastel, pencil and mixed media on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2cm
‘Told You So’ deals with that moment where you know you’re about to be proven right, but there's a part of you that wishes you got it wrong. The split of red down the canvas is to show the warming incoming danger, the looming “I told you so” as it watches on the dark and confusing chaos to the right. I find over the years, the older I get, any “told you so” fires back to you before it even has merit. Sometimes “I told you so” ends up being a blanket for your own mind, it’s only there to tell yourself to avoid something, to not take a change or risk... sometimes things will just work out... right?
(SOLD)
Sidelined (2024)
(Acrylic, plastic, balloon, pastel, ink and pencil on paper)
A1 paperwork, framed.
The second work on paper from this last year, Sidelined covers the two points of view on a friendship left in tatters. Each friend will have their own side to how events and situations turned out. The left side covers the friend confused by the others absence, and how they have to reckon with that. Written scrawls of speculation. Meanwhile, the right side shows a spilling out of riches and wrapping bands that pour from the gold centrefold, a distraction and a new phase for the other friend. It’s not too difficult to remember where you came from, but it can be harder to remember who you were.
(FOR SALE)
Stockholm (2024)
(Acrylic, pastel and charcoal on canvas)
H: 100 cm W: 100 cm D: 2 cm
Having a painting like ‘Stockholm’ be in the same show as the artwork and written work I produced on 2021 and 2022 feels a bit like a fever dream. My world opened back up, and even more than I could have imagined. It really rings bizarre to me that I was in such a low place, such a difficult corner of time, that to have an artwork based on a holiday trip in 2024 seems mad. I’ve found that life is good, great even, when it is simple. ‘Stockholm’ carries with it a feeling that I get rarely but when I do its just right. Moments when you’re overwhelmed with joy – the moment you are in feels correct and the steps coming next are right too. I felt this way strongly on my final day in Stockholm, May 2024, lying in the sun near Stockholms Royal Palace, having ice lollies with some of my best mates. Forever immaculate.
(FOR SALE)
The Warning Signs (2023-2024)
(Acrylic, oil, ribbon, pastel, photographic print and pencil on canvas)
H: 90 cm W: 60 cm D: 2 cm
Another painting that took on another life this year was a painting I had worked on late 2023 called Crux, which was to be around important moments, or a decisive point. I wanted this piece to show lines conflicting, coming into battle with one another and fighting for space and length on the canvas. It so happened that as I worked on this piece, we were asked to leave our rental property, and my partner and I decided to make the decision to move in together and buy a home.
(SOLD)
You Can’t Lose What You Never Had (2024)
(Acrylic, tissue paper, pastel, chalks, ink and pencil on paper)
A1 Paperwork, framed.
The third work on paper for this section of the show, YCLWYNH covers ground and a fun element for me within the work. I wanted to make layers, upon layers or paper and explore the fragility of it, how paper can easily tear if tissue, how a large red hot iron spin can cascade down the work to show a wound, or a split of sorts. I wanted to take what I had made from the written piece associated and let it speak out. You can’t lose what you never had is something some who lost something would say, it is a shield, a cover, a falsehood. Its title is also inspired from that scene in How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days.
(FOR SALE)
Birthday (2024)
(Acrylic, plastic wrap, medical gauze and sterile pack, pencil, pastel and ink on canvas)
A1 Paperwork, framed.
I’ve always had a weird relationship with my birthday compared to others. Every single one to me feels like a marker of my survival and another year around the sun facing what sometimes feels like a continuous uphill battle. My love for my birthday (and others too) did for a while shift into a strange monster. As I get older, I have taken more gratitude for my wonderful circumstances, but also, i had a realisation that I don’t need for my birthday to be audacious and wild. I wanted to include a whole variety of materials in this one as it was the last of the paperwork in the 2024 chapter and really test the paper. Adding the frames really held together all these elements well.
(FOR SALE)
I Think About You All the Time (2024)
(Acrylic and charcoal pencil on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2 cm
The woodlands in my brain burned down; the embers left on the bark were all that remained. No matter how hard you try, I think your mind has a funny way of bringing thoughts of the past back. In my head, I burned down the memories of a conflicting time, of feelings hidden and playing hide and seek from anyone I knew at the time, just to keep someone who didn’t want to be public with me secret. I don’t think about you all the time - but certain moments, events, remind me. I guess I have to reckon with that and move on. Time heals most things. I hope it heals you.
(SOLD)
LOT 794 (2024)
(Acrylic, Tegaderm, gauze, plastic wrap, ink and pencil on canvas)
H: 40 cm W: 40 cm D: 2 cm
During August and September 2024, I had allergic reactions to my transfusions, which did send me spinning for a bit. I have been completing home blood transfusions for nearly 17 years at home and have never had any sort of reaction. I wanted to create a piece of work that explored how I felt at the time, concerned, stressed and worried about something I have perfectly shelved in my head. Usually, no fuss and easy to manage, my weekly transfusion took on a bit of another life for a few weeks and yet it creeped out at me, reminded me that I do have to be careful and take care of myself the older I get. I wanted to create something that felt unsettling, unnatural, dripping and filled with unease.
(SOLD)
Reflecting on Breakage (2010-2024)
(Photographic Collage with wire, poly topped nails)
Created specifically for the event space in St. Margaret's House, Reflecting is a photo collage of sorts that I have used to express a really upsetting moment in my life. The event started me on a path to explore why we hurt the ones we love the most, especially those closest to us. Using photographs that have and always will be relevant to me from my sketchbooks back in 2010 and 2012, along with spray work that I have produced this year, I feel it brings together the nature of an argument that you know will heal, but in the moment feels like the end of the world.
(NFS)
No More Lessons (2024)
(Acrylic, origami paper on canvas)
H: 51 cm W: 61 cm D: 2 cm
No More Lessons is another final reflection. I feel a large part of this year and knowing that this exhibit was due, provided me with a drive to explore a little bit more of what the last four years have been and what large events have transpired over that time. I wanted to take a painting in another retro direction with a colour pattern and shapes that would have really sat well in the 60’s, 70’s. No More Lessons did have a written work attached but I want to keep it personal for me this time round. This painting is about realising that respecting someone is sometimes letting them go - into another time, another realm. I wanted to make these little portals of escapism. To explore or to hide, you can make your own guess.
(FOR SALE)
Forever (2024)
(Acrylic, Pastel, Ink, Lead, Origami Paper and Watercolour on canvas)
H: 60 cm W: 80 cm D: 2 cm
‘Forever’ feels like the correct painting to end this project on for a variety of reasons. Firstly, The Rebuild itself was to show my growth and how much more content and happier I am now – ‘Forever' demonstrates this for me personally in buckets. Forever, for me, back in 2020/ 2021 was what it felt like the duration of time despair and upset would last for. Forever now is one of the key words for me in how I describe how big my love is. Forever was exactly what I found myself looking for, and I found it. I would debate with myself too – how long is forever? Is it still forever after we are gone? Or only while we are only present now?
Regardless the answer, I find myself only wanting to be happy and enjoy my time while it’s here. There’s no other way.
Thank you for visiting the show, and if you read all of this and read this far – thank you so much. Until my next show, please remember that no matter how many times you can be deconstructed, brought down, destroyed or damaged – you can keep building. Maybe you can build something even better than what stood strong and tall before.
(SOLD)