Tom WOOD* – Sitdown

Tom WOOD

Snatch out of time

Railway Kisses (just engaged), 1999 © Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Prom shelter picnic, 1983 © Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

On the beach, South coast of England, 1973 © Tom Wood, courtesy galerie Sit Down

Summer Picnic, Sefton Park, 1980 © Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Throughout his Liverpudlian peregrinations, Tom Wood pays more than particular attention to others. They are him–fragments of what his life could have been, with its fair share of lost illusions, unfulfilled dreams, and beautiful moments. Tom Wood and his photographs are one and the same. Not only is he a brilliant observer, he puts himself in his characters’ shoes. He merges with them. During the shooting process, the photographer and his models share a common sensibility. This moment may seem insignificant, fleeting, stolen even, and yet it is as one with the sensual world. Photography lies in this ambivalence. In seeking to define the relationship between Tom Wood and the crowd, it becomes clear that his purpose is to combine his practice with these moments of life.

Tom Wood turns each image into a symbolic moment capable of representing the whole, that is, a complete, meaningful, and poetic world. The study of social relationships prevails without any didactic element.

Tom Wood’s photographs are full of details, meticulous portraits creating an aesthetics of continuity to which the practice of re-use testifies. His peripatetic approach to photography leads him to detect variations within the very situation he has already experienced–hence this sense of déjà vu when repetition becomes part of the narrative matrix. From series to series, enunciative changes are few and far between, and this world remains as if it were identical, not frozen but preserving its essence. The work itself, which is made of daily collages and fragmentary series joined together but never complete, has been remarkably consistent over the years.

In unfolding the same narrative successfully over time, Tom Wood has created an unequalled contemporary saga.

François Cheval

Liverpool

Série Buss Odyssey © courtesy galerie Sit Down

Série Women © Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Série Photieman @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Série Men & Women © courtesy galerie Sit Down

Design Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Design @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Out from Town Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Out from Town @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Stanley Road Bootle Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Stanley Road Bootle @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

London Road, City Centre Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — London Road, City Centre @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Between Birkenhead and Wallasey Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Between Birkenhead and Wallasey @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Mount Pleasant Road, Wallasey Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Mount Pleasant Road, Wallasey © galerie Sit Down

Pink High Heels Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Pink High Heels @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Maryhill Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Maryhill @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Untitled @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Pink Lipstick Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Pink Lipstick @ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Série Family Likeness © courtesy galerie Sit Down

Towards Netherton Liverpool, Tom Wood, galerie Sit Down — Towards Netherton © galerie Sit Down

Série All Zones off Peaks © courtesy galerie Sit Down

Walking Through Shoes, 1989. Série Men & Women

Série Termini@ Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Red Head Diagonale,1984©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Série Mères, filles, soeurs © courtesy galerie Sit Down

Irish Work

A Camera (Mullingar), 1986 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

The Passing Show, 1996 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Carr's Icepole, 1997 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

‘Away on with you’ (Ballina), 1993 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Country Silence, Castle Field, 1978 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Psalms on Croagh Patrick , 2003 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Violet in blue, (having to sell the land), 1991 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Standing Tall on Gráinne, 1975 ©Tom Wood courtesy galerie Sit Down

Exhibitions

2022

Snatch out of time

galerie SIT DOWN

11.18.2022 – 01.14.2023

Révélations (group show)

PARIS PHOTO Fair

11.10.2022 – 11.13.2022

2021

Remember Nature (exposition collective)

PARIS PHOTO Fair

11.11.2021 – 11.14.2021

Happy Birthday Tom!

SIT DOWN gallery

01.23.2021 – 02.20.2021

2019

Family Likeness

galerie SIT DOWN

11.06.2019 – 12.21.2019

Mothers, Daughters, Sisters.

Les Rencontres d’Arles

07.01.2019 – 08.25.2019

Solo show

Photo London

15.05.2019 – 19.05.2019

2017

Solo show

PARIS PHOTO Fair

03.11.2017 – 12.11.2017

2015

Cynefin, les paysages gallois

SIT DOWN gallery

10.11.2015 – 20.12.2015

2011

1978 – 2003 : Les années Liverpool

SIT DOWN gallery

05.11.2011 – 21.01.2012

Biography

Tom Wood, a photographer whom Martin Parr described in 1998 as “the unsung genius of British photography”, is originally from Ireland and has spent most of his life in Liverpool.
Known by the public as the “Photie Man “* (the guy with the camera) so much so that he and his camera have become part of the Liverpool landscape. The artist has been crisscrossing the smallest corners of his city on foot or by bus since the mid-1970s. The latter is the constitutive means of locomotion of his photography as his books “Bus Odyssey” and “All Zones off Peak” testify.

For almost thirty years, the street has been the framework of his photographic research.
This work, nourished by his daily life, is situated between documentary, life experience and visual research. His images, mostly taken with his Leica, alternating color and black and white, reveal the complicity he has with his subjects. He is one of them, lives like them, blends in with them. “He touches the intimate because he does not attack intimacy”, freeing himself from photographic constraints and authorizing himself a true visual freedom.

With Martin Parr, Chris Killip and a few others of the same generation, Tom Wood has largely contributed to the English social photography movement that has developed following the punk explosion in reaction to the Thatcher years.