You may have seen Tom Walker featured during the coverage of the world championship in Sheffield.
We did, and when we were invited to attend the opening of his ‘Snooker in the Frame’ exhibition, we just had to go take a closer look.
Six-times, world champion, Steve Davis OBE opened the “Maxibition” at Trinity Gallery in Salisbury, which runs from May 16 through June 5.
‘Snooker in the Frame’ is a collection of stunning pictures that Tom Walker has created over the past four-and-a-half years. He set out with the aim of creating 147 pictures and has reached his goal, and actually potted a few more in the process.
You don’t have to be a snooker-fan to enjoy his work, although it will help.
There is so much going on in each one. The main subject of each image has an obvious snooker theme, but in the background there are more subtle links to the sport.
Walker’s imagination has run wild with this subject matter and has produced amazing results. I am sure that with many of the pictures you would find something new each time you looked at them.
We spoke to Tom and asked him what had steered him towards creating so many snooker pictures.
“I am an awestruck watcher, but awful player of snooker, so I had a keen interest which led me to do the first one. Pretty soon, I realised that if I kept at it for long enough, I could leave the petty pilferings behind and attempt a maximum break-in”.
We were amazed at the detail in many of the pictures and asked how long it took to create the ‘masters-pieces’ – Sorry!!!
“That is a tough one to answer”, said Walker. “It depends on so many things, the longest I have taken over one piece is three-weeks. But many of them come together in a day or so”.
Tom has been featured at many of the major snooker events, after receiving what he describes as a kind of artistic wild-card from World Snooker. The BBC has filmed his work and his work is gradually becoming an expected ingredient of snooker city in Sheffield each year.
The pictures themselves attempt to discover the less-familiar side of snooker and have been described as ‘sometimes surprising’, ‘psychologically re-psychled’, ‘hopefully humorous’, ‘topical’, ‘tropical’, amongst many other things.
Davis is clearly a fan, he told Global-Snooker.
“I first saw Tom’s work a few years ago, and did a double-take as I wasn’t quite sure whether I was seeing things. They are superb, and what I love most about them is watching other people’s reactions to them.
It is great to see how different people like different things in them. They really illustrate the different tastes that people have. They all seem to have a favourite but rarely have I seen people agree on which one it is”.
They are in our opinion, fascinating, fantastic and would look great in any snooker club. No snooker room should be without them. But if you don’t have either, the walls of any room would be more fun with at least one of Tom’s prints.
To find out more about Tom's work click here...
