(By Tom Harrison) - published in Sarawak Tribune 

Christopher Blake was a rather handsome young man with light curly hair, an energetic expression and a nearly excitable way of speaking, who spent several years in Sarawak (mostly at Miri and in Kuching) as a servant of the Borneo Company. He did not really enjoy the way of Bornean commerce, I think. He sought other outlets – as many have done in a country which does not offer the usual and easy recreational outlets familiar to intelligent Europeans (theatres, nightly concerts, good cinemas, ballet and opera; more than one museum. Twenty art exhibitions on at a time in London; television; the Third Programme; numerous newspapers running to thirty pages on Sunday with large sections on the pursuits of the mind).


Partial Vacuum

Faced with the partial vacuum which is still Sarawak – we live in Kuching now poised between past and future in the cultural sense (and don’t even have a community hall or central focus for those newer effort) – those unhappily termed ‘expatriates’ (especially young BUJANGS) who have artistic or intellectual tastes only too easily go sour out here. I’ve seen (and in a small way even tried to influence) quite a series of such chaps over the past 12 years. For soon or later, sure enough, they gravitate to the Museum – which is so far as I’m concerned, exactly as it should be. At that stage, they are often well on the way to the dogs, via brandy. The ones who hitch upon some active outlet generally start saving money and staving off cirroshis; and with luck settle down to get really interested in something LOCAL – butterflies, stamps, folklore, orchid growing, languages, active participation in one of the local leisure organisations.


Vonderbaar

Such people disappear from my view – alas; but also as it should be! Next time seen they are happily married and the third kid coming. VONDERBAAR. The odd one out, though, wishes to give, and to express his equatorial unease in a way others can share. The most easily shareable form of such self-expression is, of course, visual art. Christopher Blake only took it up seriously after he came here. And with some encouragement from the Museum and at first, and interest and help by Art Club members, he devoted nearly all his spare time, presently, to painting orchids.


Exhibition

The exhibition now on display in the right hand air-conditioned gallery of the Old Museum (on the hill), gives a selection of his really considerable achievement as an amateur, off-duty recorder of Sarawak orchids. After he left, Mr. Blake, early this year, very generously donated over 100 of his full size (often larger than life size) paintings to the Sarawak Museum on the understanding these are made available to all interested persons – students for study in detail in the Reference Section (new building), the general public whenever there is demand.

Mrs. Lucy Morison and the Kuching Art Club which she so energetically leads have made this first demand. Thus the first Blake exhibition – which is, incidentally, the first time this new and attractive gallery has been put into public use since the P.W.D completed work on it in January. It is open to all organisations, societies and serious individuals, from now on, who want to stage exhibitions, and are prepared to help get ready and supervise the show.


Selection

We selected, for this show, those Blake paintings which are either the most colourful orchids or of the varieties the public are most likely to know, like and – as our experience in the Museum goes – therefore, for some odd reason, like to see on paper ‘just as in real life’ in their own garden (or bit of about-to-be-felled jungle).

But Christopher Blake’s pictures do more than represent. It is his artistry that has composed the plants, flowers, roots, stem into patterns which are in themselves attractive; and which are often easier – or more exciting – to look at and take in than the actual plant perched in its hung coconut husk on the verandah or balanced; far overhead in the aprophytic forest canopy.

Further: it is his art which, with the magic of insight and soft touch of living eyes (his were pale blue, if I remember rightly), makes a rather dull spathoglottis come vividly alive; or a Pigeon orchid caught in the moment of dying, seem to die with a glow, which you had not noticed – but will in the future? – on trees along Pig Lane.


Enthusiastic

I am not by nature a writer of ‘blurbs’ of praise; and it is easier (and sometimes funnier, too) to be critical. But ever since young Mr. Blake showed me his first ever effort at an orchid, I have been enthusiastic. Now we see his full range and how much he developed and improved, strengthened his sure technique as he went on. The over-all effort of the whole Blake collection is of a high standard. Some of the individual pictures are just grand. I do not think Blake’s best has been surpassed by any plant artist. And that is saying a lot, even if the theme is limited and small.


The selection now on show illustrates his whole range of achievement. But most of the smaller, less showy orchids – which he excelled in depicting with intimacy – are not exhibited. They are the specialists, who is welcome to study this work in the New Building (down the hill).

We cannot expect a Kuching full of Blake. God forbit! But one must hope!

Tribune pictures show: Mr. Tom Harrison, Mr. Yu Loon Ching AND Mrs. Lucy Morison, looking at some of the paintings and (bottom to left), some of the visitors to the exhibition admiring the pictures.