BOWES MUSEUM

TIM WALKER // DREAMSCAPES // BOWES MUSEUM //

My main profession is a photographic retoucher working for a company called Touch Digital in Shoreditch, East London.

On the 24th May 2013 the Touch Crew set off from the very wet London via Kings Cross station en-route to the NORTH for the opening exhibition of one of our clients, Tim Walker.

After a raucous trip up on the train we arrived in sunny Yorkshire, only to be whisked away over to Richmond where our fabulous host Tim and Austin were awaiting us with their three well behaved whippets, Misty, Rosie and Kofi. Millgate House is situated just off Richmond’s cobbled square, with an award winning garden, that was bursting with roses, clematis, hostas, geraniums and many other plants.

After a quick change and a short trip we arrived in the historic market town, Barnard Castle & to the impressive Bowes Museum. This gothic building dates back too the 19th Century and was opened as a museum in 1892. The museum houses a impressive collection of fine and decorative arts. However it is the famed mechanical Silver Swan that is one of it’s main attractions.

We of course were there for the opening of Tim Walker’s Dreamscapes exhibition! 

An innovative exhibition of photographs by Tim Walker, revealing how this leading fashion photographer is a significant artist with roots in traditions of English landscape painting.

Curated by Greville Worthington, this exhibition will explore Walker’s work beyond the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair, showing influences from British Surrealism, and a unique Neo-Romantic take on a particularly English aesthetic. The improbability of Walker’s sets in these 26 photographs fringes on Surrealism; beds float in trees, a flying saucer glides alongside a fox hunt, and giant dolls crash through landscapes filled with foreboding, where nature frightens rather than soothes. The ambition and scale of his images is especially impressive as they are not digitally manipulated; every fantastical scene is created with props.

For the first time, Walker’s images will be displayed in light boxes, which give a new quality of drenched colour to the images.

The presentation of Tim’s work is new and unique approach for a photographic exhibition, and is closely linked to how we at Touch see imagery day in and day out, in a backlit situation. Not to mention in a dark, blacked out room! We felt very much at home.

In the morning we were treated to an elegantly presented breakfast of fresh fruits, seeds, nuts, cereals and yoghurts, followed by a full cooked brekkie with the tastiest mushrooms ever! After having a belly full we managed to fit in a walk along the River Swale and its waterfall beyond, followed by a team building climb to the top of Richmond Castle. It turns out Ben isn’t too keen on heights....but he made it too the top!

Then back on the train to London whilst the sun went down.

Tim Walker: Dreamscapes

Sat 25 May 13 - Sun 01 Sep 13

The Bowes Museum
Barnard Castle
County Durham
DL12 8NP