TIMELINE
1967
Born in Whalley Lancashire. Raised in Burnley, in the lea of Pendle Hill. Early explorations of the surrounding moorlands and hills leads to a life-long fascination with landscape, painting and photography.
1987
Moves to Brighton, to study BA Fine Art at Brighton Polytechnic. Specializes in Fine Art Alternative Practice, working with a combination of painting, photography and text.
1987
1989
Travels to Leamington Spa and Banbury for what prove to be formative conversations with an older generation of Conceptualists engaging with painting: Terry Atkinson and the collective Art & Language.
1990
Timberlake graduates from Brighton Polytechnic with First Class Honours with Commendation.
1990
1991
Exhibits Insertion a sequence of photo-painting-text pieces, at Oldham Art Gallery, Greater Manchester.
1993
Timberlake moves to London, and exhibits Microgramma, a text and painting sequence at Centre 181, Hammersmith (February – March). Meets members of the collective BANK. Participates in the BANK show Natural History at Battlebridge Road, behind King’s Cross Station in London, during August. Work is singled out in review written by Sarah Kent published in Time Out.
1993
1994
Joins the staff of Everything, an artist-run magazine based in Spitalfields, funded by the Arts Council and London Arts Board. Timberlake begins writing editorial copy, conducting interviews with gallerists and artists, and documents artists’ work.
1996
Participates in the exhibition Symbol Systems and Explicit Philosophies, organised by Richard Cook. With Cook, Timberlake organizes a group exhibition Their Chromakey and Ours, at Waygood Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne; participates in Bank TV, a group show organised by BANK, in London and Manchester with a performance piece. Following a reorganisation, Timberlake becomes a member of the Everything Editorial collective. Begins regular collaborations with Richard Cook. Paintings selected for inclusion in the exhibition City Limits at Stoke on Trent.
1996
1997
With Richard Cook organises exhibition Only W*nkers Weep in the Project Space at The Tannery, Bermondsey. Participates in the group show Martin at Atlantis Space and the Commercial Gallery, E1. Work featured in Time Out review and receives favourable mention in a review in The Times. Undertakes PGCE(FE)teaching certificate in Fine Art at University of Greenwich.
1998
Photography work selected for What Difference Does it Make? at Cambridge Darkroom. Work reviewed in Art Monthly. Meets Matthew Cornford and David Cross (Cornford & Cross) and invites them to contribute to Everything magazine. Timberlake contributes to the BANK exhibition Sewage Lust at the ICA, London. Contributes to a season of Performance pieces at the ICA London in October, and Words & Pictures 10, a boxed portmanteau of limited editions, organised by Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Begins part time teaching at University of Wolverhampton. Begins regular discussions with Matthew Cornford about art practice and its histories.
1998
1999
Participates in group show Anxiety with Liz Arnold (1964-2001) and Janice McNab at the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh. Collaborates with Alison Gill and Arnaud Desjardin on the exhibition The Grinding Machine at Galerie Sabine Wachters, Brussels. Timberlake’s work is introduced to European collectors. Contributes to a summer group show of gallery artists at Sabine Wachters Knokke-Heist. Along with Gill and Desjardin, participates in Art Forum Berlin. After spending time in the Imperial War Museum Archive, begins working on a sequence of large constructed photographed diorama pieces, entitled Another Country. Meets Rachel Garfield.
2000
Solo exhibition A Most Fictile World, at Galerie Sabine Wachters, Brussels, supported by the British Council. Participates in group exhibition Executive Outcomes featuring William Burroughs, Polly Staple, Fiona Banner at Platform, London. Work reviewed in Art Monthly and BT magazine, Japan.
2000
2001
Exhibits A Photograph and Some Drawings at The Collective Gallery Edinburgh. Writes an obituary for Liz Arnold in The Scotsman. Awarded Van Lier Fellowship by the Whitney Museum of American Art and travels to New York to spend a year participating in the Whitney Independent Studio Program. Arrives three days before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which he witnesses and photographs.
At the Whitney Program, Timberlake meets the artist Rajkamal Kahlon, with whom he shares an interest in using painting to interrogate historical documents, and Geoffrey Batchen, the photography historian, who is visiting faculty at the time.
2002
Exhibits a selection of the Another Country work at Artist’s Space, New York
Another Country Touring Exhibition, organised by Focal Point Gallery Hertfordshire University Galleries and Worcester Museum and Art Gallery, Supported by Arts Council England Touring Exhibitions
2002
2003
Solo Exhibition Island Life at Galerie Sabine Wachters, Knokke-Heist. The show is reviewed in Kunstbeeld. Another Country touring exhibition is shown at Worcester Art Gallery. Son Isaac born in September. Participates in exhibitions at the Poetry Society London, and Floating IP, an artist-run space in Manchester.
2004
Work is included in After Life, a group exhibition at Barnard’s Castle, North Yorkshire
Solo exhibitions at The Agency Gallery, London, and Gallery 120, Ghent.
Work selected for EAST International by Neo Rauch and Gerd Harry Lybke, and reviewed in Flash Art Issue 238
Participates in panel discussion at Serpentine with Kodwo Eshun, Barry Curtis and Adrian Rifkin, in which he talks about the cultural influence of sci-fi illustrator Chris Foss.
Another Country XV is purchased by the Imperial War Museum collection.
2004
2005
Participates in There is Always An Alternative at Temporary Contemporary, London,
organised by Dave Beech and Mark Hutchinson and contributes text to catalogue.
Collaborates with Hutchinson and Beech on a collectively written project, Analysis published by Artwords and Sheffield University.
Exhibits in group show Atomica at Lombard Fried / Esso Gallery, New York.
Exhibits work in Naked Cities at The Agency, London
Takes sabbatical from teaching to begin new work. Moves from London to Wolverhampton. Commences regular discussions with Sharon Kivland.
2006
Solo exhibition of new work at One Twenty Gallery, Ghent, supported by the British Council. One of the works exhibited, Colony 10, is featured in Op-Ed page of the UK newspaper The Guardian (2/9/06)
Enrols as a Ph.D candidate in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London.
2006
2007
Solo exhibition of new work, entitled Colony at the New Art Gallery Walsall.
Organises and curates A Song Turning Inwards, group show exploring concepts of the sublime, at One Twenty Gallery, Ghent. Participates in two exhibitions at Colony, an artist-run space in Birmingham.
2008
A selection of Timberlake’s paintings and photo-drawing collage works feature in the group exhibition Curious Nature at Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, and Newlyn Gallery, Penzance. Spends time in residency at Newlyn Gallery, Cornwall as part of the Gallery’s Transition 8 programme.
2008
2009
Exhibits an installation Beyond the Wall, the Ocean, at Artis den Bosch, ’s-Hertogenbosch. Invites the art band Die Kunst to perform at the preview. Bussard Ramjet, an illustrated fiction written in poetic prose, is published by Artwords and Artis den Bosch. The book is launched in London where Timberlake participates in a panel discussion with Sharon Kivland and the philosopher David Cunningham.
A selection of Timberlake’s works from the previous decade are featured in the group exhibition Beyond the Picturesque at Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK), Ghent. Exhibition tours to MARTa, in Herford, Westphalia.
Solo show at One Twenty Gallery, Ghent, entitled Works of the Imagination.
Sharon Kivland invites Timberlake to exhibit work in Afterwards, a group exhibition exploring Freudian themes, at the Mead Gallery, Warwick University.
2010
Participates in Use & Mention, an exhibition of collage work at Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich, curated by the painter and writer, John Chilver, London.
Participates in Café Endlager, Geschäftshaus GmbH, Stuttgart.
The editors of the journal Radical Philosophy invite Timberlake to review a book on science fiction. The review is published, and becomes the basis for further reflections on the particular role of landscape in relation to science fiction.
Begins discussions on science fiction and land art with the Slade based art historian Joy Sleeman, and begins working on a sequence of works collectively titled After London.
2010
2011
Work selected for Drawing 2011 at The Drawing Room, London where it is purchased.
After London opens at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich. A panel discussion to coincide with the exhibition features Timberlake, Joy Sleeman, and writers Matthew Beaumont and Will Self.
Writes review of Gerhard Richter’s 2011 retrospective Panorama at Tate Modern for Radical Philosophy. The review is published in Radical Philosophy 171.
2012
Co-organises Landscape and Eschatology conference with Joy Sleeman and Martin Myrone at Tate Britain, to coincide with a major exhibition of the work of apocalyptic painter John Martin.
Exhibits Google Grid Paintings at Galerie Petits Carreaux, a small commercial gallery in Paris, alongside works by Ron Haselden.
is included in Dark Sky an exhibition at the Adam Gallery Te Pataka Toi, in Wellington, New Zealand, curated by Geoffrey Batchen and Christina Barton. Visits Wellington as a guest of the curators and participates in a seminar at Victoria University. Later that same year, Timberlake shows an oil painting A Pastoral Backdrop (2012) at Diamond Armour at ARTicle Gallery, Birmingham City University.
2012
2013
Timberlake’s work is shown in Catalyst: Contemporary Art & War at Imperial War Museum North, Manchester.
Makes a sound piece for the show Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! at blip blip blip Gallery, Leeds. After seeing an exhibition of Frederick Church’s work, produces a series of oil sketches on paper.
2014
Makes large scale painting installation We Are History at Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall. The piece is the largest painting project Timberlake has made since the works in Natural History, over a decade earlier. Participates in panel discussion with Joy Sleeman and Martin Myrone.
Paysages conçus pour les drones, a solo exhibition, at Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris
With British Council and EUNIC support, Timberlake’s work is included in the international exhibition Turning Points at the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest.
2014
2015
As part of a commission by the Peltz Gallery at Birkbeck, London, Timberlake holds conversations with the academic Gabriel Koureas, and further research sessions at the Imperial War Museum Photographic Archive. Produces a floor installation Artist’s Impression: Mangled Metal
Work also included in Visions of War Above and Below at the Imperial War Museum, London
Contributes to Graphics Interchange Format, an exhibition of GIFs at Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, and the Drawing Biennial 2015 at the Drawing Room, London.
2016
Becomes seriously ill and undergoes surgery. The surgery is followed by complications, and between 2015-2019 Timberlake is hospitalized a total of fifteen times. Between bouts of illness, Timberlake works on a monograph, Landscape and the Science Fiction Imaginary, and undergoes psychotherapy to deal with the trauma.
2016
2017
Timberlake participates in a group exhibition with works by Maddy Arkesteyn, Bill Woodrow, Pablo Schmidt and Nicholas Pope at Sabine Wachters Gallery, Knokke.
2018
Participates in 10-4, a group exhibition at Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich. Timberlake’s book Landscape and the Science Fiction Imaginary is published by Intellect Books / University of Chicago Press. He invites the artist Sonya Dyer and the writer Mark Bould to join him in discussion at the book’s launch. The book is critically well received in a number of academic journals on science fiction.
2018
2019
Collaborates with Ron Haselden on ‘[…] both a beyond and the conditions of mapping that beyond’ an installation at Husk space, close to the artist’s home in Limehouse.
2020
In January, Timberlake participates in a group exhibition at Sabine Wachters, Knokke. During the pandemic lockdown, Timberlake produces Distant Towns, a series of acrylic paintings on paper.
2020
2021
Timberlake meets the artist Dean Kenning, and commences a collaborative dialogue. He continues to sell work to private collectors.
2022
At the invitation of Rajkamal Kahlon, Timberlake visits Hamburg and delivers a lecture about his work to students at the HfBK University of Fine Arts.
Survival Unit, a collaboration with Kenning, is exhibited at Project Space Plus, Lincoln.
Timberlake visits Yale University to participate in the conference (Re)Thinking Landscape: Ways of Being, Ways of Knowing, where he gives a paper.
2022
2023
Extensive period of studio work results in a new body of paintings and drawings. Exhibits two landscapes in group show Plein Air at Art House, Worcester.
2024
Exhibits two large seascapes, executed in oil on linen (Behind the Wall Lies the Ocean I, 2008, and Behind the Wall Lies the Ocean IV, 2024) as part of For Want of (not) Measuring, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich, London with Ron Haselden, Jim Hobbs and Patrick Jones
Solo exhibition at Galerie Sabine Wachters, Knokke-Heist, Belgium. Works purchased by private collectors in Antwerp and Oostende.
2024