A Snatch Out of Time

Embraced locally as ‘photie man’, Tom Wood has dedicated much of his career to the people and places of Merseyside – creating an intimate, diverse and knowing portrait of the area. A new major photographic exhibition is now underway at the Walker Art Gallery showcasing 50 years of the artist’s iconic work

From matchdays at Anfield and Goodison Park to trips to Great Homer Street Market and bus journeys through the streets of Liverpool – Photie Man: 50 Years of Tom Wood celebrates over half a century of work from the acclaimed Irish-born artist.

This captivating exhibition features vintage photographs that Wood started collecting whilst still at school, alongside never-before-seen images from a wide range of formats. Additionally, some of the artist’s experimental film work is included, from the 1980s to the present day.

A series of Wood’s most iconic photographs from the ’80s and ’90s feature, including those from ‘Looking for Love’ (1989) – a portrait of New Brighton’s Chelsea Reach nightclub – to the well-known bus photographs of ‘All Zones Off Peak’ (1998).

The exhibition also includes Wood’s ‘Irish Work’, made since the 1970s, together with recent landscape photography created around his current home in North Wales.

Today, photography is an established fine art form, but this wasn’t always the case – particularly during the first half of Wood’s career. Wood, who trained in painting in the early 1970s, first explored photography through experimental film and ‘found’ postcards. His self-taught approach means he photographs in an open manner, shooting quickly yet precisely. Wood’s work is not organised as a series of projects with a start and end date.

Instead, he works daily on an unfolding, diary-like recording of his observations and encounters. He spends many years returning to particular places, to refine and distil the essence of the locations and the people in his photographs.

Tom Wood says: “I have had major retrospectives around the world – in China, France, London – but never in Liverpool, where I photographed every day for 25 years!

“I didn’t want a show for myself or my career, but rather to give the work back to the city where it belongs. I can’t think of a better venue for these photographs than the Walker Art Gallery.

“Many a time I would visit – after the markets, after the football –to walk around the galleries and unwind.

“The energy of Liverpool and its people has informed all this work – it was everywhere I went, everywhere I looked. All I was doing was tapping into that. It has been a real labour of love.”

Opposite page, clockwise from top left: ‘Lime Street, lives passing by’ (1995); ‘Disembarking, landing stage (change in the weather)’ (1994); ‘Gangolads, Anfield’ (1992); ‘Seacombe Ferry Waiting Room (Caught pigeon)’ (1980); This page, clockwise from below: Tom Wood at exhibition launch; ‘Pink lipstick (for Tracy and Vicky)’ (1984); ‘Rachel, age 17’ (1985); ‘_ntlemen (Cowley, Oxford)’ (1973); ‘Finding a pair (colour film)’ (1990); ‘Pier Head’ (1979) career,