CHRIS ORR RA

Chris Orr’s sketchbooks “seethe with acute observations of people and places, which he turns into etchings, lithographs and screenprints full of life, vigour, humour and Hogarthian commentary on our times. His work often features crowded vistas with innumerable tiny details that never fail to delight and fascinate.” Anne Desmet RA

Introduction by Chris Orr:

Japan is a wonderful country for artists. The culture is very visual, from beautiful formal gardens to exciting graphics. The landscapes of mountains and rugged coasts are breathtaking. Painting, drawing and design go deep into it’s history and are very respected. I have visited a number of times partly due to family connections. My daughter taught English there and my son married a Japanese lady and now lives in Tokyo. I must declare an interest  because my grandchildren are half Japanese.

My first visit was in 2004 and the latest is this year and each time I go, I draw and paint. I have described it as one of the best places in the world to work en pleine air because everybody is very polite and tolerant. Hokusai and others made it the most natural thing in the world to go out and draw the people and places around you.

It begun for me in Nagasaki where I made a multi sheet painting of this wonderful city. The print that followed took it’s title from the Alain Resnais 1959 film “Hiroshima mon amour”. You cannot be in Nagasaki and not be aware of it’s history. Even riding the sweet little tramway system one is reminded that after the bomb, it was only the tram tracks that survived. It was in Nagasaki that I started a vein of pictures in which I use a freer and more calligraphic approach.

A great deal gets lost in translation, but at almost every turn an outsider sees something delightful and intriguing. Spiritual feelings are tied up with the visual order and there are very many popular shrines and temples. Landscapes too are sacred. My latest lithograph “Red roofs of Shimoda” celebrates something purely visual that I experienced when we rented a house on the Izu penninslar south of Tokyo. I woke up in the morning and was struck by the extreme redness of the roofs of the nearby houses set under a complicated sky against the backdrop of an azure sea and Islands. I have made a number of variations on this simple theme culminating in the print.

Like many modern cities Tokyo is very vertical. The classic traveller’s view, after arriving, is from a hotel window on the umpteenth floor, the city spread out like a giant movie with millions of plot lines unfolding in front of of you. In my drawing “Tokyo rising” I wanted to convey the rumbling, erupting, dynamic metropolis before your eyes. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world.

Wherever I go in Japan I make a bee line for the food market. It is here that you start to get behind the formalities. Shopping, haggling, inspecting  bring out the best (and the worst) in people and provide me with a wonderful subject.

Chris Orr RA. March 2024