A Tower Hamlets artist, who teaches fine art at Middlesex University, has currently got his work on show at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.

East London Advertiser: John Timberlake next to his pieceJohn Timberlake next to his piece (Image: Archant)

John Timberlake, of Carr Street in Stepney,is exhibiting his inspiring work as part of the museum’s ‘Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War’ display.

The stimulating piece, titled ‘Another Country XV’, is part of John’s ‘Another Country’ series of work. This series began with a painted backdrop of well-known romantic landscapes by artists Turner and Constable, combined with nuclear mushroom clouds, taken from sources in the IWM’s archives.

John then constructs models with plastic spectators and photographs them together. The multi-layered work explores ideas about landscape, with the cloud appearing both toxic and beautifully fascinating at the same time.

The Middlesex University lecturer’s thought-provoking work forms part of the first major exhibition of IWM’s national collection of contemporary art produced since the first Gulf War. The exhibition brings together some of the most significant artists exploring war and conflict today.

“Another Country was a series of works I made between 1999 and 2001” John said. “When I started the sequence I was thinking about the Cold War as a hazy memory. I made this particular piece, Another Country XV, in my Whitney Independent Study Program Studio, in Lower Manhattan in Autumn 2001, shortly after witnessing the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center. Another Country XV still dealt with a perverse nostalgia for the Cold War threat, but it felt very much that the contexts for the depiction of war and conflict had suddenly changed.”

His work will be exhibited at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester until 23 February 2014.