Art - Tom Walker

Aside from the erratic behaviour of Ronnie 'The Rocket' O’Sullivan, the game of snooker is generally a sedate affair. Commentators deliver their analyses in calm, measured tones and spectators proffer their support via muffled handclaps rather than whoops and catcalls. But, in local artist Tom Walker’s homage to the game - an exhibition of paintings entitled ‘Snooker in the Frame’ - colour and life seems to burst out from a series of unlikely representations.

With a whiff of 'Alice in Wonderland', many of the works cast the components of the sport as characters in a fragment of a story. ‘An Unlucky Kiss’ (which puns on the term for a cue ball unintentionally connecting with another ball) depicts the white ball as a large woman in a billowing white dress taking a swipe at a regretful looking black-clad man, watched by a woman in red. In ‘Breaking Off’ the neat triangle of red balls becomes a procession of marching soldiers and the white ball a jilted bride publicly venting her rage at her fickle lover. Others play with the recurring images of the game, particularly the red triangle of balls as they are set up before a break. In a Grand Parade they become a dancing troupe of 'snooker players in drag'. In ‘Circus’ they are an acrobatic ensemble.

In conversation with Walker I venture that one of the paintings, ‘Bar’ reminds me of Hopper’s The Night Hawks but viewed from within looking out rather than the reverse. An apt comparison as it turns out. “Yes. Actually that is one of my favourite paintings”, he tells me. “I like the composition of the work - its arrangement of contrasts. It is something I strive for in my own work.”