by Annie Ridout
There’s a world
where sky blue horses, mounted by rosy-cheeked women in frilly ball gowns, gallop
through manor houses. Pastel pink pillars come crashing down next to big yellow
fish and graceful pink swans. It exists in the head of fashion photographer Tim
Walker.
His current
exhibition, Story Teller, will be on display at Somerset House until 27 January
2013. Brimming with magic and mysticism, flying saucers and tea parties – the
viewer is immediately whisked away on a candy-coloured journey.
But Walker also
intended to introduce a darker, more sinister edge to Story Teller. Over-sized
insects with bulging eyes playing the cello, a huge snail sliding over the
architrave, a giant doll – in a girly gingham dress – dwarfing the room are
supposed to be nightmarish but they are, somehow, comical.
Curated to emulate
Walker’s revered fashion shoots, alongside wall-hung photographs there are
miniature and massive props – a spitfire fighter plane bursting through the
wall, a swan-shaped gondola, creepy puppets in top hats – to walk amongst. Perhaps it is
the juxtaposition of enormous and diminutive, evil and angelic, thoughtful and
spiteful that adds a humorous twist.
The show is a
chronicle of his collaborations with, and commissions for, leading fashion
magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as The New Yorker, and has been
supported by fashion label Mulberry – for whom he has created the last four seasonal
campaigns. It is Walker’s
preoccupation with English eccentricity, the ethereal and using fairy-tale
narratives to bring depth and originality to fashion shoots that appeals to
fashion houses and magazines around the world.
Appearances from
Tilda Swinton, Helena Bonham Carter and Scarlett Johansson in Walker’s shoots
reaffirm his kudos within the art world, as well as a comedic documentary he
photographed featuring the five surviving Monty Python stars John Cleese,
Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones. He is currently
focusing on portraiture – and he does it well; the strong bond he establishes
with his subject can be easily detected – but the portraits do not ‘wow’ like
the fictional scene set-ups. Though the all-star-cast does help.
Walker’s newly
published book, Story Teller, has been produced to go alongside the exhibition and
wonderful quotes line the walls – offering insight into his mystical mind. He
explains that: ‘Sometimes when you’re taking a picture an
extraordinary sense of luck and chance takes over and propels you to make
pictures that you couldn’t in your wildest dreams have imagined. This is the
magic of photography’. Tim
Walker, Story Teller. Pg 112
This revelation
is indicative of Walker’s modesty because it is clearly his wild and vivid
imagination – and determination to realise these visions of enchanting lands –
that instigates these photographic happenings: not luck. Walker aims to
make the impossible possible, to make the inanimate animate and the same in
reverse. He warps sizes and sharpens colours: there are no rules and nothing is
predictable. And this is what makes his work so utterly compelling.
The Somerset
House setting is perfect – a grand, quintessentially English former palace –
especially with the romance of the open air ice rink and beautifully decorated
Christmas tree lighting the courtyard entrance.
Entry is free. Visit the Somerset House website here for further info
