TIM O'ROURKE EXHIBITION

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TIM O'ROURKE: THE STAGIAIRE COLLECTION
JULY 1 - JULY 29 2022
8am - 3pm Monday to Friday
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Introduction by

Boris Starling

If you seek the soul of cycling, look for where the roads kick upwards towards the heavens. The flatlands are all well and good for the camaraderie of group riding, but only when the gradients become steep do you, the rider, encounter both the agony of your own limits and the ecstasy of passing through the most beautiful amphitheatres nature has to offer. Your lungs sear, your legs burn and the bloodrush of your heartbeat hammers loud in your ears: but all around you are the places where eagles dare and angels fear to tread, scenery that takes away what little breath you have left.


The mountains are free, in every way. Half a million people crowd onto Alpe d’Huez whenever the Tour goes up it, and none of them pay admission. Many ride up there themselves, taking exactly the same route as the pros do. The weekend footballer can’t just turn up and play at Anfield or the Bernabeu, but the weekend cyclist is limited only by talent, fitness and the lack of a team bus offering the best masseurs and mechanics in the business.


Each of the climbs which Tim has included here is unique, and each person will have their favourite. The Stelvio is an engineering marvel, a thin ribbon of man’s genius literally hewn from the rock. The Madeleine, relentlessly long and tough, guards the entrance to the high Alps. Hardknott, with its gradient at times reaching 1 in 3, is nominative determinism at its simplest and most brutal.



For me, the most special and extraordinary of all is Ventoux. It rises whale-like from the plains, appearing to float on a sea of vines and lavender. Its lower slopes are canopied with trees, a soft, half-silent world fusing Mediterranean with Alpine: flora and fauna from both habitats existing alongside each other in a way found nowhere else in the world. Butterflies flit from leaf to leaf, lit through by the dappled sun. Golden eagles and peregrine hawks circle high above on lazy helices: chamois and red deer break cover before bounding away in giant leaps.

And then at Chalet Reynard the treeline stops as abruptly as a fence marker, and the final six kilometres to the summit are a barren, shadeless expanse of white limestone scree. This, lunar and alien, is where Tom Simpson died on a pulverisingly hot day in the 1967 Tour. There’s a photograph of him taken a few minutes beforehand which is so haunting that it burns your soul: a dead man riding, a hollow ghost-in-waiting, eyes sunken and glassy with the view of his own end foreseen. A brave, talented, charismatic man: a barren, brutal, lonely place to die.


Simpson’s memorial a kilometre or so from the summit is a pilgrimage site for cyclists the world over. You pull over, cease your labours for a moment, and perhaps leave a small token – a water bottle, a canvas cap - on the steps. Some minutes later you’re at the top, and from here you can see for hundreds of miles, north to the Rhone Valley and south to the Dentelles de Montmirail. Here, in the words of the poet Eunice Tietjens, you ‘stand in the white windy presence of eternity’: here you see how marginal and ephemeral we are in the wider scheme of things. Ventoux, like any mountain, doesn’t care. We swarm over it in all our bustling fury, and in the annihilation of its splendour it pays us as little attention as we do a crawling ant.


But then again, this existence is all we have. If labouring up a mountain climb is an exercise in purgatory, the hurtling descent back down is quite the opposite. Have confidence – there’s nothing worse than always snatching at the brakes in terror – set your weight correctly, and think your way round the corners so the bike moves in smooth arcs. On a winding road you’ll be going faster than motorbikes and cars alike, and somewhere over the howl of the wind and the zip-zip-zip of passing trees you’ll hear a strange but unmistakeable sound: your own screaming, high and giddy with the joy of being alive.


Boris Starling (born 1969) is a British sports writer, novelist and screenwriter. His sports books include Unconquerable: The Invictus Spirit, about the men and women who compete in the Invictus Games. His multiple crime novels have spanned time and place but all have a strong sense of history and location. Several have been adapted for the screen. He lives in Dorset and is a keen cyclist.

Artist Statement - Tim O'Rourke

I like to capture the light and colours of mountain roads at particular times of the day and seasons of the year, through a combination of photography and 3D modelling, to create an idyllic new map of the mountain. My work therefore bridges a gap between cartography, aerial imagery and imagined landscapes.

I reflect these changes in a mapped image which represents the route and atmosphere of the journey, whether on foot or by bicycle. The landscape fragments into a patchwork of colours, shadows, ground cover and woodland. A map only shows only binary information; an aerial photograph shows only a limited landscape frame; I want to explore the colour and flow of traversed ground, the sensory experience of the climb. Unconfined by the realism of aerial photography, and the constraints of map accuracy, my art represents an abstraction of the depth of terrain, the shapes and forms of the land. Colours are drawn from small details in the landscape; a plant, flower or rock provides inspiration.

I build a digital model of the landform and then layer information onto this, finally creating a 2D image. Printing onto aluminium, I mask patches to highlight areas and lines, the matte colour overprint contrasting with the metallic brightness of the raw metal. This gives a shimmer, flashes of highlights as the viewer passes, bringing a sense of movement to the changing landscape throughout the day.

Colour is a strong influence on me, the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein, the crisp shapes of Bridget Riley, the digital techniques of Julian Opie, the prismatic qualities of David Hockney’s photographic collages. An early obsession with the clean and detailed work of Hergé’s Tintin also shaped how I approach my drawn work.

I’m a cyclist

Mont Ventoux

1100 x 1100mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence, is a hulking mass of rock standing so proud in the landscape that the barren top is likened to a bald head. Going over the 1,909 metre summit just once is enough for most cyclists, but others challenge themselves to complete the climb from three approaches, thereby qualifying for entry into the Club des Cinglés du Mont-Ventoux.

For professional riders Mont Ventoux is a huge challenge. Who can forget willing on Eros Poli in the 1994 Tour to get his sprinters physique over the summit in time to stay away from the chasing pack? Eddy Merckx collapsed at the top on his way to overall victory in 1970, the first of his double Grand Tour years.

Tragically this is also where the great Tom Simpson died. His will to win won him fans all over Europe as well as at home in Great Britain, indeed L Équipe gave him the moniker Major Simpson. His memorial is just short of one kilometre from the summit.    Hot and dry at the base of the climb, the road out of Bédoin rises through patchy woodland, offering scant protection from the rays of the sun. From Chalet Reynard it only gets hotter. The Giant of Provence has a fearsome reputation and a tragic history.

Alpe d'Huez

600 x 600mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag


The Tour de France had the first mountain top stage finish here, and it is an ascent which regularly features in both stage racing and bucket list climbs.


The glorious Fausto Coppi won the day the first time the Tour de France went up the Alpe , and since then it has been a battleground of riders, politics and passions. In 1986 Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond, crossed the line together in a fabulously charged tour, as they negotiated an uneasy truce.


The flawed genius of Marco Pantani celebrated an incredible victory in 1997, attacking repeatedly on the climb until he finished alone and victorious.


This print is dedicated to Geraint Thomas, the first wearer of the yellow jersey to cross the line first at the top of the Alpe, on his way to overall victory. The shadows and light on the mountain are set to the time he finished the stage.

Passo dello Stelvio

670 x 1220mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemüle Photorag

At over 2,750 metres high the Stelvio links the Valtellina and the Merano Valley, skimming past the border with Switzerland. Originally constructed in the 1820s, the ribbon of tarmac is one of the most iconic in Europe, clinging to the side of the mountain with determination on the steeper sections towards the summit.

Regular appearances as the Cima Coppi in the Giro and an exalted list of winners have given the climb a justifiable status as one of the world’s finest mountain passes.

This print celebrates the extraordinary weather that is possible in the Ortler Alps at the time of the Giro. The Stelvio has been captured changing from winter to spring, the pass only just open at the top, whilst the valley far beneath is already green and lush with the river in full spate.

Laps Not Lanes (Richmond Park)

600 x 600mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

You can’t always be in the mountains when work in London ties you to the capital. Richmond Park has for many years served as an incredible green lung that acts as a magnetic escape valve for the city. I only became aware of the beauty of the park when a good friend of mine was married in a church in East Sheen, and the wedding party crossed the park to go from ceremony to celebration in a venue in Ham. I recall being blown away by the tranquillity and the extraordinary views back into the centre of the city. I’m sure many remember the park far quieter than I do, but twenty years ago, the park was far from the bustling destination it has now become.

My early loops round was shortly after that, training to ride mountains in Canada, but as my laps increased, I came to realise that loops around the park could be replaced by further distance away from London, so lanes replaced laps. The park was still a huge draw for me. When my wife and I settled into our first home together near Ham Gate, my daily grind into London was always beautifully punctuated with a traverse across the park. I rarely used the park then for recreational cycling, but enjoyed the light traffic, clean air and ever-changing colours.

This work shows a couple of my favoured cycling highlights. The steep ramp up Nightingale Lane and the horse track from Ham Gate towards the Ballet School have seen me do repeated efforts over the years in panic mode to get fit for the cyclocross season. Early mornings were always a favourite, but the summer light at the end of the day is magical from the Ballet School side, and this is what I have tried to capture here. The fragmented urban environment surrounds the vibrant shard of countryside on our doorstep.

Local Favourites

700 x 485mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

Whilst not mountains, the character and charm of these three Surrey classic climbs cannot be underestimated.

The dark heavily-wooded climb up Ranmore Common Road culminaties in a steep hairpin before breaking out into the light.

The quiet Italian feel of the Denbies Estate Vineyard is a glorious and tranquil route that always makes me smile.

The notoriously smooth sinuous tarmac of Box Hill, busy at weekends, can offer near-solitary splendour during the working week, or at the extreme edges of the day. It is a celebratory climb in many respects, a mountain for some, and a local icon at all times of the year.

Hardknott

400 x 400mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

The Lake District has always felt like a natural home to me, from becoming a proper mountain biker aged 13 on the trails around Grasmere, to spinning around the Fred Whitton Challenge on the road bike many years later. Hardknott Pass is one of the cycling highlights of the area, with a hugely tough 30% incline near the top, after leg-sapping lower slopes that wind between the abundant vegetation lining the single track tarmac road. This is a true mental and physical challenge. Whilst diminutive in pure height gain, this is no less of a beast than some of the higher and long routes over continental cols.

I recall first riding it as part of the 112 mile Fred Whitton Challenge. The only thing that kept my forward momentum on the top slopes was the fact a photographer was lurking near a particularly vicious hairpin. There was no way I was being photographed walking, even if I was proceeding at a pace which would have embarrassed a glacier.

Passo di Mortirolo

600 x 600mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

Widely considered to be one of the toughest climbs in professional cycling, the Passo di Mortirolo is a steep winding ribbon of occasionally moss-covered slippery tarmac that twists its way through dense woodland up to a summit just over 1,850 metres high. The steep grades and short length contribute to its well-deserved reputation of brutality. Marco Pantani’s aggressive and passionate racing style made him a threat on this parcours, with two stage victories in the 1994 Giro d’Italia, notably Stage 15 taking the riders over the Passo di Mortirolo on the way to Aprica from Merano. A tribute to Pantani on the way up the climb from Mazzo di Valtellina inspires one’s heart to carry on.

Alto de l'Angliru

600 x 600mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemüle Photorag

In competition with the Passo di Mortirolo for the toughest climb in this collection, the Alto de l’Angliru has become part of Vuelta a España folklore.

Hugely steep in some sections, even team cars have struggled to get to the top. David Millar famously handed in his race number after getting to, but not over, the finish line. Alberto Contador has been first to the summit twice, in 2008 and then in his final world tour in 2017, when we willed him to make the top before a charging Wout Poels and Chris Froome.

This piece reflects a personal memory of rolling through the Spanish countryside and getting to the bottom of the Alto de l’Angliru after 200km, then climbing up in the fading light of a beautiful autumnal day. The lush greens and reds at the base of the climb disappear as the steep road gets closer to the plateau at the top.

Col de la Madeleine

1100 x 1100mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemühle Photorag

In 2012 Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France, cheered on by several thousand fans. By the side of the road, halfway up the Col de la Madeleine, I added my voice to the cacophony. A beautiful monster of a climb from either side, and hovering just under 2,000m at the top, it is a huge challenge and forms part of every Greatest Climbs list.

The variety of the landscape you pass through as you toil up the climb makes it very special. From the Aigueblanche side the road snakes along the river through some industrial buildings, before the intimidating concrete retaining wall robustly announces the start of the climb. The tree-covered base gives way to meadowlands in the middle, with tiny villages clinging to the slopes.

The final section reveals itself late in the climb. Looking back from the hairpins up the last rocky inclines affords ample time for reflection on the experience. This is one of my favourite climbs, and was one of my first big mountain ascents, with all the drama a true giant needs.

This work depicts an idyllic summer morning, a dawn raid on the slumbering mountain. My favourite approach is from the Aigueblanche side. Long shadows, cool in the woods, and warming on the road on the higher parts of the mountain.

Col du Tourmalet

1050 x 1050mm Giclée fine art print on Hahnemüle Photorag

In the heart of the French Pyrenees lurks the Col du Tourmalet. This is one of the most famous climbs in the area, and one of the most popular. It is a busy route, with cyclists and motorists all making the ascent to the small café at the summit. The woods give way to grassy shrubland on the mid slopes, and as the road winds up the creased and crumpled sides of the peaks, the rough rocks take over the landscape. Some people believe it to be an unattractive climb, but my view is shaped by the romance of the road racing up the mountain. The Tourmalet has featured in both the Tour and the Vuelta numerous times. The average gradients on either side are between 7 and 8%, which make for a fast climb for those with quick legs, but taking more time and watching the landscape change, and enjoying the close valley finally giving way to open rocky top is a visual reward for any climber.

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