Page 54 - Studio International - December 1971

Chris Orr in in 1900. It purported to survey rural customs and by an actor. I love the conventional theatre as a
building, as an audience or as actors, especially
practices in a series of photographs. I used some
conversation of the customs as a basis for some prints, but when one glimpses them through a half closed
door on the way into the theatre. Quite often I
actually drawing them on to the plates a number
with of other ideas came to me so the original notion don't find the plays live up to the excitement
became more submerged. The two characters
the environment creates, the audience creates.
Christopher Fox on the right in Drunken Bidford are all that is The audience and the girls who sell programmes
left of the original idea, the rest is a kind of
interest me. I tend to feel learning and
French farce that has captivated the stage. It enjoyment are accidental rather than something
also became about a friend of mine who drinks that could be rationally confronted. I suppose
a lot, hence the dedication in the bottom left- my attitude to painting is the same; I only have
hand corner. a passing interest in painting as such. I always
CF: One aspect of playfulness or humour is that derive more excitement from the girl on the
it treats everything uniformly and with equal bookstall, the attendant and the painting or
curiosity. And this sort of curiosity can reveal drawing that is tucked away and forgotten. I
something about our behaviour. Levi-Strauss only see art really as a setting for human beings.
has analysed how middle-class restaurants I like people to buy my pictures to hang them on
establish a silent respectability through their their living-room wall; with luck they will be
organization, manners and decor. Accordingly, treated just as part of the furniture.
all those entering feel compelled to conform to, CF: When a print is ambiguous in content the
and therefore reinforce, a sense of shared ambiguity must rest within certain bounds.
respectability. The theatre is similar in this That's to say, the event enacted must be
respect: everyone concentrates under dimmed pregnant with possibilities for interpretation
lights and is expected to behave the same. but at the same time have an internal articulation
You have caught the atmosphere of secluded which registers against our normal assumptions.
warmth of such a theatre and the items of The ambiguity, in other words, addresses
behaviour an audience can privately indulge simultaneously our tendency to simplification
—eating, caressing, boredom and self- and suggests a more complex truth. Do you
importance. They have their own drama. agree with this notion—or does it strike you as
Co: Yes, it's a curious thing. I suppose I am as misguided ?
conformist as the next person with regard to Co : I feel personally that for me ambiguity has
my behaviour in a restaurant or theatre. When to be within quite narrow bounds. I don't mean
CHRISTOPHER FOR: Your work is concerned with I come to draw these situations I create the simple in nature, nor could I define the kind of
exploring human relationships. More environment, but within it my characters are boundaries. I think the ambiguities in my
specifically, they reveal a concern for the very often defying the accepted conventions. I images come spontaneously from a psychological
everyday situation which is dramatically don't deliberately plan this, it just happens. In need of the moment to fix a feeling or idea. My
charged, and for gestural absurdities, sexuality, the Colysandra print My Play Performed earlier work contained a lot of rather heavy-
the failure of relationships. At the same time people are shouting across the theatre whilst handed sexual symbolism which I tend to reject
the use of line resembles that of a cartoon and the performance is in progress. It is as if some now. I think it's possibly a new kind of ambiguity;
adds a playfulness to a print's content. How does subconscious anarchist was at work in me. I perhaps any image that we remember or notice
this apparent incongruity appear to you ? often felt this when I was younger, the need to particularly is one that is creating activity in
CHRIS ORR: I suppose 'playfulness' to me is as break the convention, defy the existing order different meanings within our minds. I think
important as those qualities or ideas that people just for the sake of it. With people I tend to what we have learnt we have in fact assimilated
consider serious. I like the idea of playpower search for their weaknesses or try to portray into conviction, into stereotype. Uncertainty
and of people living out their lives on the basis their strengths as weaknesses. I want the seems a kind of necessity to me. It makes me
of apparently trivial fantasies. I'm sure we all convention to exist in order that I can very sceptical of the history of art. I want
do it anyway; we are acting and playing to some deliberately break it. I suppose I'm a kind of something that has a clear understanding but
degree, experimenting with a possibility. Work, Walter Mitty, in reality steeped in suburban at the same time floating and changing in
sexuality, home are all mantles put on and to middle-class values and having a fantasy world meaning as the spectator changes. I want the
which we harness a plethora of absurd rituals. where those values are carefully contradicted. spectator to absorb the image and turn it into
In my work I suppose I'm setting up a stage in I say carefully because I don't consider my a myth of his own.
which either existing absurdities are played out assault on order to be at all random or for its CF: Could you say when you found printmaking
more fully or new conjunctions suggested. I own sake; it works only as a fragment of an activity of central importance to you. In
think your phrase 'exploring human absurdity in that relative situation. The idea of what ways do you want to work with it in the
relationships' implies a psychological depth and shouting across the theatre is only absurd given future ?
intent that I don't have. the situation of the middle-class theatre and Co: The short answer is never. I quite enjoy
CF: The print Drunken Bidford shows a village play—if it was a football ground nobody would making prints; I know quite a lot about
pub and road with everyone drunk. One man bother twopence about it. techniques and so on but I've always felt that
falls over. A baker is dropping the bread. A car CF: The other print emphasizes aspects of if the situation changed I would never do
races through the street causing a cat to run for certain contemporary drama; it is not artificially another print and be very happy. I do like the
its life. But, like illustrations one saw as a child, bounded, contrived and natural behaviour relationship that printmaking implies with
one does not believe a real accident will occur, coincide. How much does theatre interest you written narrative and I do like the qualities of
and those that do can only be humorous. generally ? line and detail that can be achieved, but that's
Co: Yes, I think I can show you the playfulness Co: I'm very interested. I enjoy it, particularly only the technical side necessary for the
of my approach by describing how I came to when something abnormal happens within expression of my ideas. As a thing in itself,
make that image. My brother gave me a book theatrical form such as someone forgetting their printmaking is only the same as knitting or
called 'Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures', produced lines or a piece of scenery collapses or an ad-lib marquetry to me. q
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